


Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad

by Vadianna



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, All that stuff, Angst, Ben Solo Defects, Drama, Hux is dirty and smells bad, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Major Hux, Pre-TFA, Romance, Rough Sex, Tatooine, brief suicide mention, set during the Bloodline novel, so it's mostly, though otherwise I couldn't make any jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-24 00:21:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9691217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vadianna/pseuds/Vadianna
Summary: Jedi Ben Solo, handsome hero of the New Republic, accompanies his uncle Luke on a memorial trip to Tatooine.  As Luke mourns his family, Ben meets local peacekeeper Major Armitage Hux.  Hux is unimpressed by his reputation, and proceeds to give him a scathing lesson in galactic politics before taking him on a suicide mission.Ben falls hard.Later, spending the night apart, both hear a holotransmission from the floor of the New Republic Senate that reveals Ben's grandfather as the infamous Darth Vader.  Ben does not take this well, and falls hard again.





	1. Ben

**Author's Note:**

> The violence occurs during a fight with the gang, and isn't super over-the-top, but I tagged it for Ben's revelations about what happens when you shoot someone with a blaster bolt.
> 
> The fun sexy parts happen in chapter two, though Ben does think about it here.
> 
> And please check out [Ben checking out Hux while smoking](http://queenstardust.tumblr.com/post/157584966486/some-fanart-to-help-me-relax-after-too-much-work), a lovely piece by the very kind [@queenstardust](http://queenstardust.tumblr.com). Thank you!

While walking through Anchorhead, Ben wondered if the second sun really did make Tatooine hotter, or if it just seemed like the hottest planet he’d ever been on because it had a second sun. Most of the planet was uninhabitable by any form of life, so maybe the binary star really did make it extra miserable here.

He was also trying to decide if Anchorhead was doing better or worse in the five years since he'd last visited with his uncle. It was definitely more crowded, though he was unsure if that was a sign of prosperity or not. He thought that humans might have been the dominant species previously, but now, Ben couldn’t say. He glanced up as an ithorian pushed their way past him, then turned ever-so-slightly as he felt intent from a small sullustan who was thinking about stealing his lightsaber, unaware of what it was. Ben pushed through the press of hot, rank bodies, deciding that a clear space would suffice while he determined what, exactly, he was going to do in Anchorhead until tomorrow morning. According to his uncle, the height of entertainment was when the hyperwave transceiver was turned on in Tosche Station, but they had one of those aboard their ship. Watching holonet broadcasts just wasn’t as exciting to Ben as it had been to Luke.

The town was choked with beings, and Ben wondered what they were all doing here. Anchorhead was little more than a gathering place for farmers, or so his uncle said, though the variety of lifeforms suggested that some of the urbanity from Mos Espa and Mos Eisley was spilling out into what could be charitably called a “village.” But Ben didn’t see any new construction, the same buildings that he remembered from even further back in his childhood still crumbling around him, some little more than shelters from the twin suns that scorched the town. The ancient moisture vaperators installed on most buildings had gotten even louder over the years, the persistent humming noise almost drowned out the crowd sounds and threatened to make Ben smash every single one of them. The residents probably didn’t hear them anymore, and the thought of getting used to something that annoying was currently beyond his comprehension.

His eyes landed on one new building, low and large, just on the edge of town.  He pushed his way through the crowd to look, for lack of anything better to do. And anyway, the crowd seemed to surge around it, as if the area around that building was somehow more poisoned than the close, humid, dust-choked air that permeated the rest of the town. Ben snorted, clamping down on his disgust. It meant nothing. There was nothing he could do for Tatooine, or its citizens, and soon he and his uncle would leave it behind them for another five years.

The new building was a sprawling single story structure, made of prefab grey durasteel, and Ben wondered idly if it had better climate control than the other structures on Tatooine. The locals didn’t seem to have embraced air purifiers and conditioners, and if those were absent the building would be uninhabitable, the walls trapping and holding the heat of the sun. It would be better than any oven could be. Ben pushed his damp hair from his brow, and could feel sympathetic sweat rolling down his back under his light, sleeveless tunic.

Ben pushed his way through the edge of the crowd, which did indeed appear to give the building a wide berth, and frowned to himself as he approached it, slowing his formerly determined step. It was unmarked, the door to the blank facade closed. There were no windows. Cheery. It was quite large, and because he was curious and didn’t have anything else to do, he walked around the perimeter.

The only other doors in the featureless walls were a few closed speeder ports. The building could be anything. Perhaps it was a port for the jawas that ran salvage over the surface of the planet. He squinted at the small speeder ports, recalling that the jawas used larger transports. Whatever. Perhaps this was a small operation, or maybe it was more economical to run smaller vehicles. Whatever it was, the new building pointed to prosperity among the failure of the rest of Anchorhead. Ben mentally applauded the entrepreneur, then sighed and turned the corner to the back of the building. He had been hoping the building would present some sort of entertainment, but what could he really hope for? He resigned himself to drinking weak, warm beer in one of the filthy bars again. He curled his lip, thinking his father would be proud of him. Maybe even his uncle. Hadn’t that been how everything had started for him, after all? He’d heard the story enough times.

To his surprise, he saw someone sitting on the ground, staring out across the desert with his legs stretched out in front of him. He was sheltered by the building's shadow, very thin this time of day, and a poorly-constructed cloth awning.  It was made from stained white rags hanging over a loose framework of metal poles, all of it at odds with the sleek building itself, but probably an effective shelter from the sun. The ground was hard-packed here, though still gritty, and Ben could see the particles clinging to the thick pants and heavy black boots the man wore. His pants and the tunic he was sitting on were both a hideous shade of teal, which looked particularly unflattering on what Ben could see of the fair, freckled skin of his arms and the bright red hair the man wore loose and tumbling over his ears and forehead, clinging to his skin in damp locks. A filthy, damp white undershirt clung to his skinny chest. As Ben watched, he reached down into his pants and removed what Ben soon realized was a pack of cigarras and a lighter. And, suddenly, that seemed like the best way to start his own afternoon.

“Can I have one too?”

The man turned to look at Ben, his eyes widening in what Ben knew was recognition. Luke, and consequently Ben, avoided the spotlight most of the time, but there were still a certain amount of public appearances he had to do as Senator Organa’s son, and a lot of props about the two Jedi keeping the galaxy safe that were widely distributed. He was used to being flagged down and recognized when he traveled, but he wasn’t expecting it in the Outer Rim, even on Luke’s home planet.

He rolled his eyes and walked closer. “Don’t tell anyone.”

The man’s eyebrows went up. Ben noted that both his eyebrows and eyelashes were a delicate shade of pale orange to match his hair. “That you smoke? Of course not. What would people say if they found out the Jedi were slaves to common vices.” He spoke with a rough, thick Outer Rim accent that Ben had trouble parsing. Ben had noticed it was beginning to creep back into even the human speech on Tatooine. He’d asked his uncle about it once, why Luke didn’t have it, and been told that most of the humans had been slaves imported by the Hutts, and had come from elsewhere. Apparently the Outer Rim was reclaiming this planet.

Ben snorted as he parsed the man’s accent. “I’m told to avoid vices and attachment, worldly things.” He gestured, intending to indicate the city, but the meaning was lost when Ben realized they could only see the white stretch of desert from the back of this building. “But even my uncle says that you have to do it sometimes. Denying yourself leads to resentment and darkness. But he doesn’t want to know about it when it happens.”

It occurred to him belatedly that this man might not actually care about this, and might have been mocking him. Ben looked down at him, confused. The man was now looking back across the desert, and hadn’t responded to his explanation of Jedi doctrine. He’d never met anyone that hadn’t wanted him to speak at length about the Force. He shook his head slightly, putting the thought out of his mind.

Ben leaned against the warm durasteel wall next to the man, crossing his ankles and holding his hand out expectantly. When he didn’t feel the pack of cigarras right away, he looked down to see the man staring at him incredulously. Ben frowned, and thought about what he’d said again. Maybe he had been making fun of him. Ben was used to receiving celebrity treatment after being recognized. This man was one of the few who wasn’t impressed by a real Jedi.

The man rolled his eyes, lit the cigarra in his mouth, then handed it to Ben, shaking another from the pack. Ben grinned and put it to his own lips, drawing the warm smoke into his lungs and feeling the tingle spread through him. The smoke was unpleasant and jarring, the quality of the cigarra not very good on a planet like this, but it’d been months since he’d smoked. He usually chain-smoked when he was away from his uncle, and was planning on buying a pack later. Or several, to take back with him and hide, sneaking them when he needed them, like a naughty boy. Sharing one companionably like this was a pleasure he didn’t often have.

Not that the man was being very companionable. He was, in fact, not speaking, which was annoying. Ben tried to get a conversation going again.

“You have me at a disadvantage. What’s your name?”

“I don’t think knowing my name is an advantage,” the man fired back in response.

Ben shuffled, suppressing a smirk as he looked down again. The man wasn’t looking at him, was looking back across the desert.

“You’re the local militia, right?” It wasn’t a question. He was wearing a uniform, had a blaster strapped to his right thigh, and Ben realized the new building was probably to house the peacekeepers. He bent down slightly, looking at the man’s dogtags hanging over his sweat-drenched, dingy undershirt, then frowned when he realized that his name was written in the Outer Rim Basic script that Ben couldn’t read. He could only make out the letter “F” scratched crudely over another letter.

The man looked up, following his gaze to the dogtag, then looked back across the desert, annoyed. Ben thought to reassure him that he couldn’t read them, then held his tongue. If he was going to be antagonistic, Ben would oblige him in kind.

“It’s Hux. Major Hux.”

Ben’s lips twitched in amusement when he realized what the defacement said. “Not Major Fux?”

The man shifted. “I replace them, but it keeps happening. My subordinates think it the height of hilarity to picture my desiccated corpse found out in the desert when our 60-year-old tech inevitably fails, and my remains being interred with the epitaph: “Major Armitage Fux, Gave His Life In the Line of Duty, Doing What He Loves.”

At this, Ben laughed, and didn’t really care that the other man wasn’t joining him. He drew on his cigarra again, looking down. Hux was staring across the desert again, and Ben’s gaze caught on the angry red, peeling line of sunburn across his nose and cheeks, which where heavily dusted with freckles. “How do they keep getting your tags away from you?”

“There are any number of vices that make you forget about this hellhole. As a soldier, I engage in most of them,” Hux answered cryptically.

The ‘hellhole’ comment twinged at Ben, but he couldn’t determine why. He knew Tatooine was a hellhole, had just been thinking about how unpleasant it was to spend an afternoon here. He couldn’t imagine living here. He thought the citizens were used to the inconveniences, blind to them. How would they know any different?

But he chose to ignore this, in favor of something more entertaining. “I was hoping for a little oblivion myself tonight. Any pointers?”

Hux looked up at him and narrowed his eyes again. The blue stood out in his sweaty, smudged, sunburned face. He turned back to the desert before answering. “The Cantina is about a dozen buildings down the street. Pick your poison there. They have plenty of it.”

Ben hummed, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “I was hoping for something a little more creative, from a soldier.”

He heard Hux snort, but didn’t look down at him. “ _Creativity_ implies things I’d rather not be caught discussing with Senator Organa’s son, lest he come back and make us miserable with the might of the New Republic Peacekeeping Committee.”

Hux was speaking with such a sneer in his voice, accent thicker, that Ben couldn’t understand him at first, then understood that he thought Ben was some sort of galactic policemen. Ben took a last inhale of his cigarra before blowing the smoke out in frustration and stamping the remains under his heel.

“Come on. I don’t care about the spice here. They only send me and my uncle out for the serious problems. When the cartels start to organize, or someone tries to control the trade routes or the supply of resources. Stuff like that.”  He should be amused, or proud, that he was some sort of paragon of virtue.  But he ran into too many situations like this.  He just wanted to waste an afternoon, he didn't want to put on a show.

“ _Stuff_ that troubles the core worlds.  Of course the supply of spice and other illicit trade through the Outer Rim would be none of your concern.”

That... wasn't what Ben was used to hearing.  

Hux looked back up at Ben and continued. “Are you here for the hutts today? I’m sorry to say that we chased them away again, though I certainly would have appreciated the help.”

Ben narrowed his eyes and frowned. “There haven’t been hutts sighted off Nal Hutta in decades. What are you talking about?”

Hux was giving him the same incredulous look that Ben saw when he expected the cigarra. “You’re not joking, are you?” He shook his head in dismay and flicked his own butt into the desert, drawing another from the pack and lighting it.

Ben watched him, growing even more annoyed.  “Of course I’m not. You don’t seriously expect me to believe that the hutts are back? Those are the bogeymen from children’s tales. Next you’ll tell me that this building is full of stormtroopers, and there are Grand Admirals flying around rebuilding the Empire.” Ben leaned down and snatched the cigarra from Hux’s lips, angry now, wanting the buzz from the tabacc through his system. He could do three or four more like this before going back into the town. It was irritating to get a lecture in galactic politics from some filthy derelict, as if he had any idea what was going on. Still. This man was ridiculous and surly, but Ben liked that Hux who knew who he was and didn’t care.  Ben had never been spoken to like this before, and it was refreshing, regardless of how ill-informed he was.  Ben thought he might be up for a fight.  He so rarely got to indulge.

Hux grunted in annoyance and drew out another cigarra. “How silly of me, to think I could get one over on you. Of course you and your omniscient uncle have a handle on crime in the entire galaxy. The threat of you appearing, personally, has the hutts and the niktos shivering in their skins. All one has to do to solicit your help is to send a representative to the sympathetic senate and state their case.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably. He knew that he and his uncle were used as a threat to keep systems in line, but... they didn’t actually get called on often. It had been over a year, in fact, since Ben and Luke had done a peacekeeping mission. They had been sent to Cato Neimoidia to negotiate with the wealthy Neimoidians, who still ran most of the galaxy-wide trade routes. They had begun to tax trade more heavily, and had refused a request from the Senate to “share” the tax. The money was badly needed by the government, and Ben and Luke had been sent to request a portion of it be diverted to the New Republic.

Of course the Neimoidians weren’t going to just say yes, regardless of the logic, or how Luke pleaded that the money would be used to set up colonies on worlds with resources that couldn’t feed themselves, get food to places that struggled with overpopulation or lacked anything but mineral resources. Luke had empathy. The Neimoidians had money. Ben was more persuasive.

Ben always went second in negotiations, and Luke left when he did them. They never spoke of it. Ben hated using his powers for money, it felt like such a poor use of them. But the Neimoidians had so much of it, and so many had none at all. He reminded himself it would feed hungry cities, and he felt better.

Hux’s implication that the Senate let bad things happen rankled more than it should. Perhaps because it suddenly made a certain kind of sense, to Ben. Of course there’d be crime, if there were no active patrols or military. Ben well knew their contentious policy against keeping a military force, lest it be used to tear the galaxy apart as Emperor Palpatine had done. But certainly the Senate would know about any major aggressions. They would be told, and they would… negotiate. Maybe with someone who was better at politics than Ben.

But who would that be? Other Senators?

Ben pushed the uncomfortable thought away. It just meant that nothing bad was happening.  If it was, they would send him out with Uncle Luke to help.  They probably just had things well enough under control that they didn't have to bother the two of them very much.  They were left to their Jedi studies, and as backup just in case something really bad _did_ happen.

“A centrist,” he replied drily, in lieu of an actual answer to Hux’s question.  He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it left his mouth.

He heard Hux shift, and looked down to see the man sneering at him. Ben pulled on his cigarra again, exhaling, as rage played across Hux’s face. He looked back out across the desert.  He should have a better answer for Hux, but he didn't know how to explain.  Hux was wrong.  He only saw things on Tatooine.  How could Ben tell him what it was like in the galaxy, that the petty local gangs and their little bit of local spice was nothing?  Life would go on here as it always did.  The people here didn't know better, and there wasn't anything Ben could do about that.

“You’ll find that those kind of party distinctions only exist in the center of the galaxy. Or maybe you won’t. Talking to you is a waste of time.”

Hux shifted again, and Ben put a hand on his shoulder, sliding down next to him. He wanted the conversation to last longer. He wasn’t sure why. He didn’t like where it was going. Hux stilled when Ben sat next to him. Neither looked at the other, both staring instead across the sun-blasted desert. A gust of wind blew grit up into Ben’s eyes, and he squinted against it, waiting a moment before speaking.

“You’re telling me that there are hutts on this planet again?”

Hux was quiet for a moment. “Not right now. We… managed to get rid of them again.”

Ben snorted. “Then you’re just blowing smoke up my ass about crime around the galaxy. I should have known. Usually people want to shake my hand and tell me how great I am. You’re the first person who wanted to argue politics with me.”

Hux grunted, and answered sharply. “Talking to you is like speaking to a self-absorbed infant. Do you think that the hutts are the only threat to peace in this sector?”

Ben grit his jaw against the insult, keeping his temper in check. Hux seemed to be genuinely upset about some sort of local problem, and he was taking it out on Ben. Ben was sure there was no major threat. Any sort of criminal activity would seem disproportionately overwhelming here. But if Hux was this upset, and implying that the New Republic was forsaking them, it was probably an opinion shared by others. Maybe there was something Ben could do to help. Hux would tell Ben about some Sand People raiding the farms, he and Luke would ride out and put a scare in them, and that would be the end. Ben was willing to believe that a local peacekeeping force would be relatively untrained on a planet like this. If Hux was discontent, maybe a small favor like this would be enough to make him feel better about the New Republic.

Plus, Ben had never been in a fight against a real enemy before.  The thought of he and Luke fighting sent a powerful thrill through him, and he suddenly wanted to please Hux even more.  But he wouldn't mention his lack of experience.  Nobody needed to know all his fighting had been theoretical.  Besides, this would be an excellent use of his skills.

Ben blew a stream of smoke out to the desert, calming himself down. “Tell me, then.”

Hux was silent for several minutes. Ben sat, waiting for him to answer, waging a war inside himself over impatience and the need to hear how Hux phrased this for him. Eventually, Hux pitched his butt out to the desert again and stood, looking down at Ben and raising his eyebrows. He seemed agitated, arms crossed over his chest.

“You mentioned you were looking for a little oblivion, Ben Solo. Would you care for the more permanent kind?”

Ben smirked. He loved meeting challenges, and they were so rarely issued to him. Fine, then. He could take on some Sand People himself, no matter how bumbling and incompetent the local _Major_ was. This was probably going to be the most fun he’d ever have on Tatooine anyway, and his uncle wouldn’t even need to hear about it.

Ben put his hand out, and Hux grabbed it, pulling him to his feet. Ben stared into Hux’s face and saw a kind of manic, hard light in his eye. Hux wasn’t scared, he genuinely wanted to see Ben fight his enemy. Ben smiled more broadly. He loved showing off. He ground his cigarra out again, then bent down to retrieve Hux’s ugly teal tunic from the ground.

“Armitage Hux, are you offering to show me a good time?”

Hux’s lip curled. “I hope they kill you before me. I’ll rest easier knowing the galaxy’s most oblivious idiot went to his grave on this shithole planet.”

This only made Ben grin wider. “Maybe they’ll bury me in an unmarked grave next to Major Fux.”

Hux sneered, teeth bared, and took the tunic out of Ben’s hands, turning on his heel. “Go around the front and I’ll bring a speeder.”

“Aren’t you on duty?” Ben called to his back.

“I’m the CO of the middle of nowhere,” Hux called over his shoulder. “I hesitate to leave them here unsupervised in this bustling metropolis, but I think our mission will be for the greater good.”

Hux began pulling on his tunic as he slammed the door behind himself. Ben stood and grinned for a moment, then completed his circuit around to the front of the building. He took his time, hoping to make Hux wait on him.

Hux didn’t wait, turning around the corner in the speeder as Ben sauntered up to the front of the building. He practically threw a beat-up helmet into Ben’s arms, snarling “Get on.” He was wearing the ugly teal tunic open, still bearing his tags and his sweat-stained undershirt. Ben knew he was probably only wearing it to protect his shoulders and arms from the sun. It was miserably thick for this climate, and Hux would be basting inside of it. He was also wearing a second blaster strapped to his other leg, of a make that Ben wasn’t familiar with. He looked even more ridiculous and filthy with that dirty tunic and a beat-up helmet pulled on over his scowling face.

Ben grinned as he fastened the helmet and began to slowly climb onto the jumpspeeder behind Hux. He thought about offering to drive. He could use the Force and get them there much faster than Hux could, but Hux knew where they were going, and Ben wasn’t familiar with Tatooine. He held his tongue as he climbed on and put his arms around Hux’s waist. He tightened his grip and leaned in, pulling himself tight against Hux’s back as Hux drove much faster across the desert than Ben was expecting.

He studied Hux’s hands on the controls, seeing that the man had also pulled on black gloves, likely to protect his hands from the sun and the grit blowing in the wind. Ben smiled at the thought of driving gloves being a necessity on Tatooine. As he studied the speeder controls, his gaze caught on the sleeve of Hux’s tunic, and his skin crawled. He leaned in closer, yelling to make himself heard over the sound of the wind.

“Why do you have Moff Tarkin’s name on a stripe on your sleeve?”

He saw Hux shift his grip on the speeder controls, and he slowed as he turned his head to speak to Ben after a moment. “You know he was Grand Moff of the Outer Rim?”

Ben, annoyed, decided to make things easier. He closed his eyes and focused, using the Force to bring the sound of their voices through the helmets and over the rushing wind of the fast speeder ride. There wasn’t anything to see anyway.

“Face forward and talk normally. I can hear you.”

It was satisfying to feel Hux jolting in his grip. Ben knew it was the sudden closeness of his voice. He smirked and continued. “Tarkin also destroyed Alderaan, and built the first Death Star. Certainly that will always be his lasting legacy.”

Hux was quiet another moment. “He was from ———, grew up in the ——— Sector.” Ben didn’t understand the names, couldn’t make them out through Hux’s accent. “Where he grew up, the sector’s trade was choked off, and goods were almost constantly stolen by pirates. The Hydian Way was the only route in and out of that section of the Outer Rim, but it was nearly unusable for trade because only a small percentage of ships made it through. People starved and died.”

Ben clenched his jaw for a moment before letting himself speak. “The Galactic Republic had the Jedi! They could have just requested assistance. If no trade was occurring and people were dying, that would have been grounds for a Jedi mission.”

He could hear Hux snort into his ear. It was unpleasant, and Ben lost his focus for a moment, missing the first part of what Hux said next.

“——— sent to the Senate to ask? It was the same as it is now. There are thousands of worlds pulling on the Senate’s resources, and they debate endlessly about where to send them, ultimately sending them nowhere. When Tarkin was given power, the first thing he did was chase the pirates out of the Hydian Way. For good. Pirates still avoid that route.”

Ben blinked. He didn't know that. But certainly the Empire had its ways to keep order. That didn't make Tarkin a good man. And besides, that incident sounded fairly isolated.  “The Hydian Way doesn’t go through this section of the Outer Rim. Why do you care?”

“He did that all over, Ben, when he became Grand Moff. Trading became easier. Money and food flowed into the Outer Rim. He chased the hutts back to this corner of the galaxy, and they stopped trading in human slaves. The hutts still don’t take humans as slaves, they have long memories. He would have pushed all the cartels back into Nal Hutta, would have stopped it all, if he hadn’t been pulled away for the Death Star. Nobody else since has managed ——”

Hux’s accent got worse as his temper obviously rose. Ben blinked, processing what Hux was saying, trying to parse it. Certainly... well. Did Tarkin do all that?  Ben supposed he must have done _something_ as Grand Moff, though he had always imagined it was sealing people inside ships and shooting them into the sun while broadcasting their screams on an open radio frequency.

“Tarkin has been dead… for over 30 years. The Outer Rim still exists. He is not the beginning and end of order.”

“The only order we have out here is what we make ourselves, and what was left from his administration, which is almost completely gone. When was the last time the New Republic intervened in Outer Rim affairs?”

Ben’s mind whirred, furiously trying to come up with an example, because Hux was wrong about this. He had to go even further back than his Cato Neimodia mission. He realized, suddenly, that Hux might be more well-informed than he thought, and his earlier insults stung worse because of it. Still, Hux didn't know more than Ben.  Ben dealt with the Senate directly.  They did send him out on missions.

Just... maybe less often than he thought.

“Dac. There was a dispute between the quarren and the mon calamari that needed to be mediated.”

“Oh, what a surprise, the home world of Gial fucking Akbar,” Hux bit out. “Let me guess, the quarren were found to be in the wrong.”

Ben was silent. He couldn’t remember the details well enough to defend the decision. The mon calamari were a naturally peaceful race (mostly - they did make excellent fleet strategists), and the quarren were warriors, and he was sure that had something to do with it. Of course the Senate would have intervened for the mon calamari. But he couldn’t think of how to phrase it to counter Hux’s argument.

But _Hux was wrong_.

“Certainly destroying Alderaan canceled out any good he did by arresting rogue pirates and freeing the trade routes.”  Ben was getting angry.  Hux didn't deserve it.  Or maybe he did. He was wrong. And Ben didn't know how to answer these kinds of questions.

He could feel Hux’s anger surge in answer to his own. He realized suddenly that he might be angry for the wrong reasons. He was mad because Hux was asking hard questions, not because Hux was defending a genocidal maniac. He felt like he should be upset on behalf of his mother’s people. But he’d never been to Alderaan, had been forced to mourn it every year of his life, and, if he were honest with himself, he wasn’t that close to his mother. In that way, maybe pulling out Alderaan had been a cheap shot when he couldn't think of a response to the good things Tarkin did.

A small voice in Ben's mind, one that spoke up rarely and that Ben tried to ignore, told him that you could be a bad person that did good things, just as you could be a good person that did bad things.  But he didn't think either Hux or himself wanted to hear that just now.

Hux responded to Ben's accusation, though, and it left Ben nearly speechless.

“Ben, the Death Star is unpopular out here, but only because it took the Moff’s attention away from the sector. In fact, I’ll drive you to Mos Eisley and take you to a bar there, and you can explain to a building full of ex-slaves that the man who freed them and their families across the Outer Rim is a bad person because he blew up a rich Core World.” He paused. “Maybe you should ask your uncle where he’d be without Grand Moff Tarkin.”

Ben shivered as the comment hit home. The Skywalkers had been slaves on Tatooine. He had been told the story only one time, about how his grandfather had been traded out of slavery into the Jedi Order, and his great-grandmother had been a freed slave. He wondered if the breaking up of the Hutt cartels had something to do with it. He wondered, if it hadn’t, if his uncle would be a slave on Tatooine still.  He was sure his family had been free before that, but if it had been a problem here...

He shook himself. Hux’s arguments reeked of Imperialism. At the very least, Ben thought he might be right about the Republic not having enough influence out here. If they idolized the Empire so much, perhaps it would be good to tell his mother to send Goodwill Ambassadors on a tour of the Outer Rim, so they could see the good the New Republic was doing for the galaxy. But he had no answer for Hux about Tarkin.

“He tortured my mother, Armitage,” Ben tried, hoping to at least show why he couldn’t give up on his side of the argument.

Hux’s anger was only tempered with amusement. “I went through four years of senior officer training staring at a bootleg holo and a prop poster of your mother, in a metal slave bikini, choking the life out of a hutt. The fairy tales about your family don’t have a lot of influence out here.”

The bold honesty made Ben laugh, and perhaps he shouldn’t have, but he was reminded again that it had been over a year since he’d spoken to his mother, and he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her in person since he’d begun living with his uncle when he was six. And his laughter broke the tension. He didn’t really want to fight with Hux before heading into whatever situation he was about to face.

“That really happened.  She killed a hutt. My family single-handedly got rid of one of the hutt cartels themselves.”

“And then she left.” He could still feel Hux’s anger and frustration beating against him again. “Someone else moved into Jabba’s palace and took over all his contacts. It was more of the same.”

“Okay, okay, I was trying to make a joke!” Ben tried, desperate to lighten Hux’s mood.

“These things aren’t jokes, Ben.”

“Fine.” Ben let the argument go. After a few minutes, he tried again.

“So did you spend your school days fantasizing about my mother in a bikini?”

He could feel Hux relax in his arms, the tension going out of him. “No. I was a little too old for that, and your mother wasn’t exactly my type.”

Hux’s mention of the senior officer’s training flitted across Ben’s awareness and was gone again. He frowned, thinking they had a strangely organized militia for a backwater. But he put it out of his mind, smirking and clutching Hux tighter, pitching his voice lower, sending a tickle against Hux’s neck.

“Am I more your type? You didn’t have to take me all the way out here for fun, Armitage.”

He could hear Hux snort again, this time he was ready for it. “I don’t fuck idiots.”

Ben frowned, stung by the insult, but supposing he deserved it for being unable to answer questions. “You’d have to take a bath before I touched you.”

“If you’re looking for a clean sex partner on Tatooine, good fucking luck. They have more alcohol than water here. They farm the kriffing water. Even the steam for the sonic shower is too much. I’m allowed to shower once a month. As the CO, I get the water first. It’s my favorite of the little privileges on this planet.”

“And it’s been awhile,” Ben couldn’t resist needling him. Then the references to Tatooine added up in his head. “Wait. You’re not from around here?”

“No, I’m from Arkanis.”

Ben recognized the name of the sector that Tatooine lied in and assumed that Arkanis was nearby. “How did you wind up in the Tatooine militia, then?”

“Funny story, that.” The speeder slowed down, and Ben opened his eyes, momentarily dazzled by the light reflecting off the sand, giving himself a moment for his eyes to adjust and for Hux to come to a stop.

Hux got off the bike and tossed his helmet aside without a word, wiping the sand off his face where it stuck to his sweat. He pulled a crumpled teal cap out of his belt and put it atop his greasy red hair. Ben blinked, but tossed aside his own helmet and followed wordlessly.

Hux was muttering under his breath, fast and low, in an Outer Rim dialect that Ben couldn’t parse. But his open tunic was blowing around him, his tags were clinking merrily at his chest, and every part of him was filthy and stained. He looked ready to do murder. Ben smiled and followed, prepared for whatever cobbled-together criminal force was a threat on Tatooine.

They were in front of the ruins of what Ben assumed was one of the old hutt palaces. It was huge, armored, and crumbling. Ben looked wonderingly around the grounds and grimaced. It was a perfect place to operate out of, built with sieges and defense in mind. It probably still had most of the tech that the hutt would have installed for security and amenities.

Hux pounded on the huge front door with the flat of his fist, then crossed his arms, still not explaining anything to Ben.

To Ben’s surprise, a heavily-armored human with a shaved head opened the door, pointing a blaster aggressively at Hux. Hux nodded at the man, saying something in the dialect. The man’s eyes widened in surprise, and his weapon lowered slightly. But the surprise was quickly replaced with a wide white grin that Ben didn’t like the look of. He jerked the gun and gestured them both through the doorway. Hux put a hand to Ben’s back and guided him into the building past the thug.

Ben used the same Force trick they’d used on the speeder, so he could whisper and Hux could hear him.

“I don’t understand that language. What’s going on?”

Hux glanced at Ben out of the corner of his eye and smirked. “They’ve been waiting to see me for months. They’re taking me to Rak Kuat.”

The name Kuat sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t recall where he’d heard the name before. He stepped over and around rubble on the floor that hadn’t been cleared away from the collapsed stone walls and ceiling, and stumbled occasionally when the lighting died in the hallway completely. A sour sense of foreboding hit him. These weren’t Sand People. These were humans. Humans from another world, and the family name sounded familiar-

They were herded into a large room open to the sky. On a large stone chair atop a raised dais in the middle of the room was a huge, bald human woman.  Ben and Hux were standing taller than most of the other humans in the room, but she looked like she might be over a head taller than them and would be a tough opponent for even Ben, if she knew how to fight. She had a sneer on her face and a prominent scar running from the corner of her eye to the corner of her mouth. She wore baggy black fatigues, many rings in her ears, and had a huge blaster across her lap. Ben had heard their escort call ahead, and the room was bristling with weapons and armed guards. He looked around, seeing a pool of water churning on the floor, feeling the climate control blowing and rattling, making the room warm and humid instead of unbearably hot. It was a colossal waste of resources with the sun shining clearly in the sky overhead. There were crates stacked against the walls. He could smell the distinct scent of loma fruit, and saw the woman in the chair drinking what he thought might be Chandrilian forna liquor from a crystal glass.  Ben could see it staining her lips and tongue as her expression softened and she gave the two of them a more considered look, sipping again and resting the glass on the armrest of the massive chair.

Ben set his jaw. This was what Hux had been talking about. He regretted not listening. He wasn’t sure how he felt coming here with just Hux, either.  

Actually, no.  If he was honest with himself, he was excited.  Very excited.  

“Rak Kuat, I presume,” Hux began in Basic, giving the woman a mock bow. “A pleasure, after the last year of cordial messages.”

“Major Armitage Hux. The kitten the First Order sent to keep the peace here.” She inclined her head slightly, and slid her gaze up and down Ben. “You brought a friend.”

Hux put his hand out. “I just met him. A core worlder. He told me cartels didn’t exist in the New Republic.”

Kuat threw her head back and laughed. She wore a necklace of mis-matched metal loops that tinkled and chimed as her chest heaved with amusement. “Did you tell him there is no such thing as the New Republic here?”

Hux raised his eyebrows. “He’s one of the peacekeepers. He wouldn’t listen.”

Kuat smiled and studied Ben further, a cold glint in her eye. “A peacekeeper? He must be lost.  And a little dangerous!  Perhaps we should have taken those pathetic weapons of yours.”

Ben creased his brow, fingering his lightsaber. “Why didn’t you?”

Hux snorted derisively again. “It doesn’t do any good.”

Kuat laughed again. “Hux tries to parlay with me occasionally. Says I’m hoarding too many resources for the citizens of Tatooine. I send his little troopers back in pieces. He asks his Order for reinforcements, and he sends his legions into my Palace. I send him their heads.”

Hux sighs and shakes his head. “I keep calling for an air strike. I want to wipe this place out from the sky. I don’t have the authority, and they won’t waste all the supplies and resources that would be destroyed along with this building. They tell me emptying this of cartel scum is what I’m for.” He spread his hands. “And they send me more troops.”

“Who I kill in the ports. And then I take the heavy weapons they send with them. It works well.”

Ben frowned. “Do you two know each other?”

“No, no! I’ve been dying to meet the Major for… many months now.” She paused, looking over at Hux and shifting in her seat. “He proves elusive. He can’t be plucked from his own fortress, no matter how I try. It would be so much easier if I could get rid of the Order soldiers on this planet. Leave me in peace.”

Hux put his hands out. “Here I am.”

Kuat narrowed her eyes. “I think if I kill you, they might do the air strike. Do I think you are noble enough to sacrifice yourself, little man?  Or maybe you were ordered to your death?”

Hux blinked at her. “Perhaps I was ordered to my death.  Maybe this was my choice.  Maybe I’m just tired of this hot wasteland. I’m tired of a position that I will never leave, on a planet I hate, doing a job that is useless. Perhaps you’re just doing me a favor.”

Kuat hummed. “I agree. This place is miserable. I miss Rothana.”

And then it clicked for Ben. “Rothana is where they made the ships for the Empire.”

Kuat laughed again. It was melodic and genuine, and made her strangely attractive to Ben, along with the obvious danger she radiated. “Clever boy! And so handsome.” She gave Ben another appraising, more lascivious look. “The Kuat Drive Yards would have been mine, but the Republic will not order my ships, and has forbidden it of anyone else.” She narrows her eyes. “And they were watching me too close to do work for the Order. I was out of business too long to move my shop elsewhere.”

Hux turned to Ben, gesturing. “And she was too used to the good life, apparently. So she went to a piss-poor planet and decided to be the local bully.”

Kuat shrugged. “It is no different than what the Empire did. The weak are meat.” She looked at Ben again, her ring necklace tinkling against itself. “You are not weak. You look like someone I should know.”

Ben cocked his head to the side. He wondered if it would be beneficial to reveal his identity. Decided that, if he was here, in this situation, he had probably already thrown caution to the wind, and it couldn't hurt.

“Sure. I’m Ben Solo. I’m a Jedi Knight.

At that, the room laughed uproariously. Ben was unprepared to see everyone doubled over, incapacitated with laughter. It took a moment for the uproar to die down, and Kuat wiped the tears from her face.”

“ _Uslan te har_ , Major. You have brought us a handsome, funny man. Is this how you die?”

Hux squeezed his eyes shut and muttered something under his breath before opening them again. “Apparently.”

Kuat inclined her head. “You strike me as a more careful man than this. You have put up a great fight, and I enjoy your efforts. I would not have guessed surrender of you.”

“It’s this planet. Certainly you would have left already if you weren’t bleeding it dry. It is different enough from Rothana. And you can bathe.”

Kuat wrinkled her nose. “This is true. This planet is miserable. But I did not give up when my mother and I did not have…” she looked up at the ceiling and said something in a language Ben didn’t understand, then looked back to Hux and said something in the Outer Rim dialect.

Hux looked amused, and repeated the phrase in the Outer Rim dialect before switching back to Basic. “A pot to piss in, is maybe the expression,” Hux finished for her, turning to Ben, his expression sliding back into arrogant neutrality. “Her mother was the owner when KDY shut down, and they drifted for a long time until her mother drunk herself dead and Rak decided she wanted easy prey.”

“Tell me it is not what the Order does, find easy prey to steal from the Republic?”

Hux turned back to her. “I thought we were trying to help people. I was certainly trying my hardest.”

Ben turned to him, and Hux gave him a quick glance out of the corner of his eye and a shake of his head, then continued. “The point, I suppose, is that I’ve given up. All this banter was really for his benefit, because he believes in the good of all planets. I would appreciate it if you shot him first.”

Kuat shrugged. “If you give up, that is it. You were entertaining, this afternoon. And a good opponent. Die well, Major. It will be a pleasure to shoot you myself.”

And without preamble, she stood and shouldered her rifle, aiming it at Ben. He merely raised his eyebrows. She was telegraphing her intent clearly enough, and Ben was more than prepared. Just before she fired, he put out his palm and turned her bolt back against her with the Force. It went straight through her chest, killing her instantly.

He had never had an opportunity to try that in real combat before. In the moment, it was exhilarating, though there was a part of him that thought he should have hesitated, should have turned the bolt to the side as a warning, rather than making it a killing shot. He should not take this much pleasure from the kill. But he did.

More satisfying than that was the gasp he heard from Hux, next to him. He had a quick thought that perhaps Hux would take him more seriously now. But before Ben could react, Hux had drawn both his blasters and had taken out four of the opponents closest to him, firing on their unprotected heads. Ben watched them fold, their weapons dropping to the floor. He noted, clinically, that a blaster bolt through the head wasn’t nearly as messy as he’d always thought it would be. They bled, but only from the hole. Ben had always imagined heads exploding when struck by a blaster bolt. Apparently that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t sure why he thought it would be.

He smiled at the bodies and drew his lightsaber. He’d never been in a real fight before, and if he was honest with himself, he had been hoping for something like this, rather than the fistfight he was telling himself would happen.  Not including his uncle had been one less obstacle. He’d used his lightsaber every day for as long as he could remember.

But never on somebody.

And he wanted to. Badly.

So he stepped over to the pirates on his side of the room, putting out his hand to deflect their blaster bolts. Most were too stunned to fire, and none of them stood a chance against him. He pushed the weapons out of their hands with the Force, and as they stood staring, his lightsaber cut through their armor and bodies as if they were paper. He was surprised when they did not bleed, when the smell of cooked meat and burned fiber and metal resulted in a pile of bodies, but no gore. He heard Hux’s blaster fire cease behind him, and he stilled himself to study the bodies in front of him.

He closed his eyes and reached within, trying to find pity, or horror, or sadness in the idea that he had needed to draw his blade and end life, however misguided these lives had been.  He wasn't supposed to do this. Certainly his uncle would have found a way to negotiate with them. Luke would have found a reason not to kill them, would have been able to talk them out of all of it.

But sometimes, Luke didn’t, and he let Ben use mind tricks to get the desired result. He wondered if Luke would let him mow down opponents like this, if it were someone not worth negotiating with.

Because Ben liked it. He couldn’t find regret in himself. He didn’t feel anything he thought he should. He only found satisfaction, pleasure in finally using the skills he’d spent his whole life honing, and that he’d used them for the right reasons. These people had been hoarding resources, killing the militia.

He opened his eyes when he felt Hux jerking him backwards by the arm, leaning forward to hiss in his ear.

“We have to leave right now.”

Ben turned, took a step toward Hux, but didn’t move further.

“But there are still people in the compound,” Ben said, a little confused.

Hux was yanking sharply on his arm, trying to drag him toward the doorway. He looked angry and even more disheveled, but was uninjured and seemed unaffected by the fight. Mostly angry. “Exactly. We need to leave before they find out what we did.”

“But… isn’t this why we came here today? To eliminate this gang?”

Hux stopped pulling on him, stood still, blasters on his hips, and pressed his lips together. Ben saw his hard blue eyes narrow, his greasy red hair tumbling wildly around his dirty, sunburned face from underneath his cap. He was sweating in the warm, damp air of the palace, and had sand stuck to the hair framing his face. Ben jerked his attention back to his angry expression, realizing that Hux was still staring at him incredulously. Apparently his opinion of Ben hadn’t really changed.

“Yes, although I had planned it as a suicide mission. Now that it is not, I’d like to leave with my life and come back with better odds.”

He turned and began walking toward the hallway they entered through. Ben let his brow crease, took a few steps towards him.

“But isn’t now an ideal time to take out the rest of the compound?”

Hux whirled. “Are you crazy? There must be over 30 other members of this gang. There are two of us, Ben, and we don’t know the layout of this palace. Without the leader, the gang will be dispersed or picked off naturally. They’ll hide here until they run out of food and can’t anymore. There’s no need for us to do it today.”

Ben clenched his jaw and took a breath, trying to be calm, trying to convince Hux to continue. “I can tell where everybody is. We won’t be sitting ducks. I’ll make sure they can’t sneak up on me.”

Hux looked toward the doorway, and back. “If you need someone to shoot you in the head, Jedi, I can do it right now.”

Ben shook his head. “Please. This… it’s what I should be doing.” He tightened his grip on the lightsaber and looked down, unable to express what he felt in the heat of the moment. He looked back up and tried again. “This helps people. These are criminals that should be punished.” He paused, not sure if he wanted to give this to Hux, wasn’t sure why he couldn’t just let the man leave and do the clean-up himself. He decided to continue anyway. “I’ve trained my whole life to do this, and it’s never meant anything. This is what it’s for. Let me… make a difference. For once.”

Hux stared at him, but Ben could see he would stay. He let out a small sound of exasperation, and drew both of his blasters.

“Fuck. My reward for living is running back into the embrace of that miserable town. At least its cooler in here.”

Ben smiled. Hux scowled. Ben closed his eyes and reached out to the minds in the compound.

There were twenty-three.

He opened his eyes and led the way into the corridors beyond.

***

The twin suns were just beginning to touch the horizon by the time they left the hutt palace. Ben was expecting them both to be gore-covered, reeking of the metallic scent of blood. But his lightsaber didn’t bleed people, and Hux didn’t get close enough with his blasters to cause any more damage than that single bloody blaster hole to the head. Hux only needed one shot to take his enemies out.

Ben walked behind Hux on the way back to the speeder. Hux was backlit against the light of the setting suns, his dark silhouette indistinct. He had a large bag slung over one shoulder, and the slight breeze across the desert was blowing his open tunic behind him. His cap and boots stood out starkly against the lines of his body, and Ben found himself biting his lip and wondering how to proceed.

He wanted Hux, wanted him badly. But he’d only had a few partners, all of them tripping over themselves to be in bed with Ben Solo. He hadn’t had to try. But being Ben Solo didn’t impress Hux. Neither, apparently, did taking out a Tatooine gang with just the two of them.

Battle lust had caught Ben out badly. He’d heard murmurings of it, that there were men who lost themselves in the heat of the moment against their enemies. It had always sounded wonderful to Ben, and it was. He thought of the impassive look on Hux’s face as he ended life. He thought about Hux’s complete control of the situation. The way it felt to fight with Hux, to know Hux would have his back if he did something stupid. The sweat crawling down Hux’s temple. The steadiness of his hands, the sureness of his shot. The way his thumb stroked against the grip of the blaster when he was thinking.

He thought about asking Hux if he felt it, too. He felt like he’d lived a lifetime through the battle at Hux’s side, like he knew everything about Hux. All the important things. But Ben had really only known the man for a few hours, and Hux seemed like the type that felt very little, or at least shared very little of it. Ben weighed the pros and cons of asking. The advantages were heavily weighted in favor of kissing Hux, of peeling off his uniform and getting at his pale, freckled skin, of having those fingers that were wrapped around the blaster wrapped around Ben, of seeing him make some facial expression that wasn’t anger or incredulity. But if Hux said no, Ben would have to take one of the speeders from the compound and ride back to Anchorhead by himself, and he’d rather do it from behind Hux, with his arms wrapped around him.

He’d still ask, but he’d wait until they got back into town.

Still, he’d have to calm himself down before he got on the speeder, or Hux would know. And as badly as Ben wanted to touch Hux, to gush about the fight as they shared drinks and cigs and sex, something told Ben that Hux wasn’t going to be interested in him that way. Hux seemed unflappable, and like he’d seen combat before. He wasn’t going to be turned on. Hux had stayed calm and analytical through the whole thing, and had held Ben back at several points, waiting for just the right moment to strike. He’d been completely unaffected. The thought of being so detached from the battle they had just experienced together made Ben shiver, and made the whole thing worse.

“I… think I need a cigarra after that,” Ben tried, as the two of them got to the speeder and he watched Hux sling the large bag over the side, strapping it in place. His back was still to Ben, and Ben was glad to have the opportunity to control his expression. Hux turned and gave Ben an unreadable look, his hands reaching for the helmets, then pausing. He looked down at the speeder, then huffed, stuffing one hand in his pocket and removing the crushed pack of cigarras, shaking one out.

“Buy me more when we get back to town,” Hux said perfunctorily before handing it to Ben. Ben smiled and took it, along with Hux’s lighter. He lit his own, then leaned in to light the tip of Hux’s cigarra with the tip of his. Hux stared into his eyes, expression unchanging, as he did so. Ben leaned away, handing him back his lighter and drawing the acrid smoke in, studying Hux.

He was keyed up from the fight, but there was something else that was nagging at him. Something that he meant to ask Hux if they both made it out alive.

“Their leader was discussing the First Order with you. It sounded… not like the local militia I thought you were.”

Hux’s eyes narrowed as he studied Ben. He exhaled, expression unchanging. “It’s above my rank to give that kind of information to the likes of you, I think.”

The corner of Ben’s mouth drew down. “I just assisted with a peacekeeping operation that you were unable to perform by yourself. The least you can do is tell me who I just helped out.”

Hux’s eyes moved from Ben to the palace, then back out across the desert, to the bright sunset. “And what do you want to hear, Ben Solo, pride of the New Republic, one of the last Jedi? That I’m part of a military organization that patrols the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions, trying to keep things like this from happening? That we fill in order where the New Republic can’t? That we give hope to people that have been prey too long, that think nobody important cares?” Hux turned and met Ben’s eyes again.

Ben wasn’t sure how to answer that. He took two long draws on his cigarra as he thought of the best way to answer.

“The New Republic forbids any world from building a military force. And you're organized enough to have ranks and… did you say you wanted to call an airstrike? Do you have a fleet as well?”

Hux rolled his eyes. “I will not confirm or deny anything about the size or strength of my organization. But we are unaffiliated with any one world.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Still. A military force is forbidden. You could wage war on the New Republic with soldiers and a fleet.”

Hux arched his eyebrows. “I suppose we could. But here I am, patrolling Tatooine, trying to make sure the citizens are fed and aren’t getting executed in the markets for buying something the cartels want. I’m a monster like that.” Hux had smoked his cigarra fast, and he flicked the filter back out into the desert, grabbed the helmet, and slung his leg over the speeder.

Ben sighed, and studied the rest of his cigarra, suddenly losing the taste for it. He flicked it away, and got on the speeder behind Hux, pulling his helmet into place and wrapping his arms around him again.

Hux took off across the desert. Ben kept himself pulled firmly against Hux’s back, inhaling the sour smell of sweat and grease in the hair that crept out the back of his helmet, feeling the dampness of the sweat collecting between the two of them. As they approached Anchorhead, twilight was rapidly approaching, and the lights were buzzing loudly on in the town.

As Hux pulled up in front of the new prefab bunker (apparently built by the First Order), a group of small children approached. They stopped several feet away from Hux. Hux narrowed his eyes, dropping his helmet and standing at what Ben assumed was military attention. Ben looked between the two, and faster than he could blink, the blue-skinned, long-nosed ortolan child whipped something out from behind their back and threw it at the door of the bunker.

Ben reached uselessly for the child, surprised and unsure how to act, but he was even more surprised when Hux shot the object out of air. When it landed, Ben could see it was a plast container for soup. The children cheered, and two more children threw objects. Hux used both blasters to shoot them out of the air. Ben saw a slight smirk on his face, and with dawning comprehension, he realized it was a game between Hux and the children. Ben had a hard time reconciling this with the man who had been keeping him at arm’s length all afternoon, the same person who had just shot over a dozen men through the head without comment.

“I've had it with you. I’ve told you before not to throw garbage at my door.” Hux’s eyes shifted over to Ben. “I've got someone new to guard the base, and he's got more of a temper than I do. Make sure you don't make him angry.” The corner of Hux’s mouth quirked as he lined the blasters up at Ben and raised his eyebrows.

Ben smirked, knowing what he wanted to do. He never got a chance to show off like this. He put his palms out and nodded slightly, and Hux fired both at Ben.

Ben stopped both bolts in the air between them and held them in place. The children gasped, then let out such a cheer that Ben almost laughed and let the bolts hit him. He drove them both into the ground before he could lose control. Hux had fired them so they wouldn’t hit him, should they miss. He had seen Hux’s work at the bunker and knew it for intention.

When he looked back to Hux, he saw him reach for the bag he'd brought from the bunker. He upended it onto the street, revealing a pile of the silver twist bottles used at the moisture farms.

“I had to do a raid tonight. Don’t tell your parents what I came back with.” Hux bent low, picking up one of the dented, scuffed bottles and unscrewing the top, sipping from it.

In a flash, the children grabbed the rest and disappeared into the alleys and crowds without a trace. Ben looked after the ortolan child for a moment, then turned back to Hux.

“You brought them water.”

Hux shrugged, looking away. “The gang was raiding the farms. Nobody had enough of it. They’ll either drink it themselves or give it to someone who needs it more. Children are good for things like that.” He turned back to Ben, offering the filthy bottle. “I’ll send the troopers in the morning to deal with the rest of the water, along with the money, food, and other supplies.”

Ben eyed the jug before taking it and drinking from the lip. The water was warm and gritty. He tried not to think about the supply he had aboard his uncle’s shuttle. To Hux, and to those children, this was wealth.

“What else was the gang taking?”

Hux looked around the town, leaning against the speeder and crossing his arms. “They were controlling all the trade coming into Mos Espa and Mos Eisley, so anything that was coming on planet. New vehicles. Food supplements. Medical tech. Farming tech. All of it. We could get some into the towns by meeting our ships at clandestine points away from the cities, but they were throttling back a large amount of off-planet supplies.”

Ben handed him back the bottle and looked away, back across the town.

Hux was right.

“I really… would like to hear more. About things like this.” He looked back. “Can I buy you a drink?” He smirked. “Even if it’s just water?”

Hux turned to stare at him, face inscrutable. Ben felt an unfamiliar shyness wash over him - he was never shy. He was calm, confident. People knew who he was. They liked his stories, they wanted to see his powers. Hux had asked none of these things of him, and seemed indifferent to… well, to who he was. Ben found it disconcerting, and it left him wanting to impress Hux, wanting to please him, even beyond just having sex. He wanted to speak to Hux more. There were things that Hux could tell him.

But Ben could read nothing from Hux. Not his face, which Ben had yet to see anything but anger an annoyance in, except for those children. Nor could Ben read his emotions. He could occasionally skim the surface when he was speaking to others, but he couldn’t know for sure without pushing deeper - which he didn’t do around his uncle. His uncle never discouraged him, but Ben could feel the disapproval from him, and Ben knew it was Dark, taking people’s privacy like that. But there were situations where Ben felt it was justified, and he generally trusted himself to know the difference. Certainly that wasn’t Dark. And this wasn’t one of the exceptions. There would be no reason to force his will on Hux.

Ben watched something flash across Hux’s face, but he couldn’t tell what it was, and Hux looked away. “No, I need to stay in the base tonight, to reassign resources and organize the recovery of the supplies.” He did sound a bit reluctant, though Ben wondered if that was just his own hopes interfering. But Ben didn’t want to be turned away yet, and he wasn’t sure if his uncle would want to stay here another day.

“Then one more cigarra, behind the building? Can you put it off for just a little longer?”

Hux met his eyes and frowned, then looked away again, turning back to the speeder. “I’ll regret it later. Meet me around back.”

Ben smiled at him, and turned to walk around the massive structure. This time, he beat Hux to the back door. Hux said nothing, slumping against the wall, then sitting cross-legged on the ground in what Ben assumed was his usual place. The suns were down now, and the air was cold. Ben shivered slightly, his tunic still damp with sweat and chilly against his skin. He had a rather awful sunburn where his shoulders and arms had been exposed during the speeder rides, and he ran his palms across the skin, feeling the warmth and pain.

Hux had discarded his tunic somewhere, and it had done its job. His pale, freckled arms were untouched by the suns. The new chill in the desert air seemed not to affect him. His undershirt was also soaked with sweat and still filthy, and Ben had a hard time looking away from Hux’s thin chest.

Ben walked over and leaned against the wall next to Hux. The bright flame of Hux’s lighter flared for a moment, then the cherry glow of his cigarra lit his face in the darkness. Hux handed it up to Ben, then lit another for himself. For a moment, Ben said nothing, simply looked out across the Tatooine landscape.

There was no civilization here, no light, and no ships or satellites visible in the planet atmosphere, so the stars in the galaxy spilled across the sky like grains of sand. It dazzled Ben for a moment, thinking of how many of those innumerable points were supporting a world that had life on it, with people who were trying hard to live, just like this one. Ben thought about Hosnian Prime, with its spires and cityscapes, and he thought of the dying metropolis on Coruscant, the planet-wide overlay of spaceports and manufacturing on Corellia. In those places, the surfaces vibrant with the signs of life, you couldn’t see this many stars. Tatooine’s desolate surface was bathed with the lights of other worlds that was invisible elsewhere.

Hux broke the silence. “I’m not going to tell you about the First Order, if that’s what you were hoping for. I don’t want you coming back to arrest me.”

“I wouldn’t arrest you!” Ben protested, then clamped down on his emotions. What if he was ordered to arrest Hux? They would want to investigate the First Order, if they knew about it. It violated the treaties. But who would the New Republic send to investigate? Did they have a small contingent of soldiers that Ben didn’t know about? Would they send Ben and Luke?

“I… wouldn’t tell them. I don’t think.” Ben exhaled, frustrated.

“How reassuring,” Hux returned.

“No, it’s…” Ben wasn’t sure how to articulate his frustrations. “I’m not… I’m not stupid.”

Hux snorted. Ben supposed he deserved that, and he continued.

“I see… what you were trying to show me. And I don’t know what to think of it. What would you think, if suddenly you went to another planet and it wasn’t like you thought it would be?” Ben wasn’t sure how to explain himself.

He could see the tip of Hux’s cigarra turn toward him, could see it brighten as he drew in, ashed it against the ground. “The planet I grew up on is…” Hux waved the hand with the cigarra in it. “It’s cloudy, and rains all the time. Not a lot of people, similar to Tatooine. Only a few cities. When I was assigned to an arid desert, I was thrilled. I thought it would be like Arkanis, but without the mold.” Hux drew in on the cigarra again. “I didn’t realize how badly off things were until I got here. It was... sobering.”

Ben relaxed, not sure why the admission calmed him. He slumped against the wall, sliding down to sit next to Hux. Ben pressed his thigh into Hux’s and drew on his cigarra, still staring at the stars.

“Have you ever been to Coruscant?”

Hux grunted. Ben took it as a no and continued.

“It’s dying. There’s a large industrial sector that has been abandoned for over 60 years. Apparently it shut down even before the end of the Galactic Republic. After the war, the officials all moved to Hosnian Prime. There’s almost nothing there anymore. I don’t think they meant for that to happen, to kill that planet and still have a centralized government.” Ben exhaled a cloud of smoke, but his view of the stars remained clear. “But how else can the Senate meet if there's not a central location? And how are things supposed to get done if they don’t have resources on hand?”

Hux grunted again. “Our command is mostly mobile. They check in with stations like this, and give us supplies, balance the active needs of all the worlds against what we can gather and move around. They can also provide minimal support for situations like the one we dealt with, but that's what the ground forces are for. It works.” Hux shrugged, cutting himself off. Ben did not miss the slight slip of control, the information given freely. “It works. Moving around.”

Ben thought about it. It made sense. “There’s a lot that I don’t know. A lot they didn’t tell me. I didn't really think about things until now.”

“What have you been doing? Do you not follow the Senate? I thought you were one of their lackeys.”

Ben ignored the insult and continued. “Not really. I mostly just… train. Study. They send my uncle and I around to talk and meet with the leaders of planets.”  Everyone always considered it sacred work.  Ben was ashamed to admit to himself that it didn't seem that important, here on the surface of this planet, with people going without water because of a gang.

“You make everyone feel better.”

Ben was quiet for a moment. “I’ve never been in a fight before today.”

He could see Hux shift, turn toward him. “You’re joking.”

The admission felt good, even as he feared Hux’s reaction to the truth. Ben decided to take a liberty and leaned his head against Hux’s shoulder, looking back out across the desert. “No.”

Hux was silent for a moment, but didn’t protest. “Your tactics weren’t the best.”

Ben smiled. “You seemed to be military of some sort. You had it handled.”

“You would have died without me.”

“You would have died without me.”

He could hear Hux huff, he hoped it was amusement. “I wouldn’t have gone without you.”

“Same.”

When Hux didn’t reply, Ben continued. “But I think I’m glad we did.”

He could feel Hux’s hand come up to his hair, could feel Hux rest his palm against his sweaty scalp, and Ben closed his eyes, shivered.

Hux continued the conversation as if nothing else was happening. “Do you want me to tell you how brave and fearsome you were?”

Ben opened his his eyes, but didn’t dare move his head. “Yes.”

This time, he did get a chuckle out of Hux. “I didn’t realize that one of the galaxy’s only Jedi had such a fragile ego.”

“My ego is vast. You hardly talk about my reputation.”

Hux yanked on his hair. Kylo smiled.

“I don’t need to. I’d have to tell you that you don’t live up to it.”

Ben wondered if this was Hux’s way of keeping him at arm’s length, but the hand in his hair told him something else, and that was the part Ben listened to. He sat up and put one palm on Hux’s thigh. Closing his eyes, he leaned in and kissed Hux. It was soft, and Ben stroked his tongue against Hux’s lips, tasting salt, feeling the chapped texture. He licked at Hux’s mouth until it opened, until Hux’s tongue came out to meet his own.

In Ben’s limited experience with kissing, this wasn’t a great kiss, or even a good one. It felt like Hux had to think about it, even after his hand in Ben’s hair, and they were both sweaty and gritty. But Ben squeezed Hux’s thigh to ground himself as his head spun. Somehow, it felt how Ben thought it should. It felt exactly like what he wanted Hux to give him, and he wanted more of it. He broke the kiss after a moment, pulling back to look.

Hux hadn’t closed his eyes, had the same inscrutable look on his face.

“Why are you on Tatooine, if not to take care of the gangs?”

Ben sighed, but since Hux wasn’t pushing him away, he leaned back into his shoulder. “My uncle comes back to… mourn his family, sometimes. His aunt and uncle are buried out on a moisture farm somewhere. I leave him to it. It’s abandoned, and I didn’t know them.”

“It was an accident, then.” Hux was quiet. “Will you still be here tomorrow?”

Ben bit his lip. “I don’t know.” He sat up. “I’ll make sure to give you a new pack of cigarras before I go, though.”

Hux put his hand to the back of Ben’s head, and pulled him closer. He leaned in for another kiss, soft and slow. Ben closed his eyes, not really caring what look Hux had on his face at this point. To his surprise, Hux pulled back slightly, biting Ben’s bottom lip. Ben grunted, his eyes springing open. Hux exhaled against his mouth.

“See that you do.”

And with that, Hux stood and went back into the bunker. Ben watched him, stared at the closed door for a moment, then rose and went out onto the street. There were less beings out at night, and he was able to stand in relative peace, at a loss as to what to do with the rest of his night. He thought he should wait at Tosche Station for his uncle, like he promised. He had no way of knowing if Luke would be back tonight or not. He could focus, could find Luke in the desert, find out if he was still meditating at his old homestead or was on his way back with the shuttle.

But Ben hoped he’d be left alone for a while. He wandered into the cantina, deciding to get pleasantly buzzed and sit out on the hard-packed sand underneath the stars. He had a lot to think about.

He got a drink and retired to a corner by himself. He didn’t like the revelations of today. Didn’t like it at all. Did the senate know the Outer Rim was like this? That there were people this desperate, that were being taken advantage of? He should ask Hux for more details, more about planets that might need help. Maybe if he made a point of approaching his mother, of telling her what he’d seen and asking about the other planets, she might let him at least go and look.

He frowned, thinking of his mother. He had hardly spoken with her in almost a decade. She made a habit of calling about once a year to check in. His uncle talked to her more than he did, though when a younger Ben had asked Luke about things he could talk about with his mother, Luke admitted that he didn’t know Leia that well, either. Ben actually had no idea if she would allow him to go to troubled planets. Maybe she had other priorities.

But it did sound like something his uncle would let him do. They had the school to go back to - the children were on Coruscant. They didn’t have to be there all the time for that, and neither Luke nor Ben were actually that smart. They had real teachers for that. But they went back, periodically, to try and encourage the children’s use of the Force. They were all Force sensitive, in at least some minor way. Ben didn’t think that any would have real promise or talent, but he and Luke were exceptions. Their family was special.

He smiled, thinking of talking to Hux again, the promise of a kiss. He always preferred his sexual liaisons at night. He wasn’t sure if he could stretch the trip out into another night, or if the Major would be up for any sort of fun during his day shift. He was surprised that the Major was up for any sort of fun at all. Though, perhaps that was why Ben found himself drawn to him. Hux surprised him in a way that few people did, perhaps because of his honesty.

Ben hoped he’d see Hux again. Hux had been spontaneous enough to go to the palace, after all. Ben was sure he could talk him into drinks and some lessons in politics, especially if it was in aid of helping the Outer Rim. Hux seemed passionate about it, and about proving that Ben had no idea what he was talking about. Ben imagined him being a passionate lover as well, though perhaps Hux wouldn’t want him once Ben revealed the full scope of his ignorance. He had seemed put off by it. But seeing Hux again, and the potential to do something right, would be worth it. Maybe he’d come back to Tatooine after solving the problems that Hux told him about, and Hux would want him then.

Ben closed his eyes and rested his head against his arm. He’d never wanted to please anyone like he wanted to please Hux. It was a little much, and Ben recognized it as a foreign impulse in himself. He felt lost. He wanted to find his way through it, find his purpose. Hux would help him.

He finished his drink quickly, feeling the cigs he’d had too much of singing through his blood along with the strong alcohol. He debated for only a moment about having another drink. One more, then he’d go outside and sleep on the ground. Why not? Hux was dirty, Ben didn’t have to be clean for him tomorrow.

There was a commotion at the bar when he went back up. Several of the patrons were leaning around a small, flickering holo of someone speaking in Basic with a spoken translation in Bocce over it. Ben blinked, unable to separate the two languages, and watched the speaker finish and the holo flicker out. There was an uproar, and the barkeeper started it again.

Ben squinted. The speaker looked like a Senator, but not one he recognized. He leaned in to an aqualish, hoping they spoke Basic.

“What’s going on?”

The aqualish exhaled, the long hairs around their face blowing in a gesture Ben couldn’t parse. “Speech from the Senate floor. A doozy!”

Ben perked up at that. If it was something they were watching on Tatooine, perhaps the situation hadn’t been so dire as Hux described. Maybe they did administer more than Hux thought, and he’d just been wrong. Ben relaxed.

“What are they arguing about today?” Ben tapped the bar to try and get the barkeeper’s attention, but the holo had the attention of nearly everyone in the room. Ben frowned, something twisting inside him. Maybe it wasn’t as good as he thought.

The aqualish made a hooting sound. “The senator from Riosa took the legs from Senator Organa. She was wanting… mmm, she said there was an army somewhere, and wanted to investigate slavery. It doesn’t matter. But they were going to elect her First Senator, since Mon Mothma is stepping down.”

“Mon Mothma…” Ben trailed off, knowing he wouldn’t get the answer he needed from the aqualish. Or would he? “Why is Mon Mothma stepping down?”

“They say she’s dying. Who knows. That’s not the juicy part.”

A pang, at that. Mon Mothma had been close to Ben as a boy. It had always felt special when she talked to him, like he had the attention of the most important person in the galaxy. Ben smirked for a moment, thinking of Mon Mothma as some sort of Emperor, then realized the aqualish was still talking about his mother.

“So Senator Organa is going to be First Senator?” This was pretty big, Ben supposed. But again, it wasn’t something he had spoken to his mother about. He thought maybe he should visit Hosnian Prime to congratulate her, and to see Mon Mothma one last time. That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?

“Not any more,” the aqualish replied derisively.

Ben frowned. “What? Is there a better candidate?”

The aqualish hooted again. “Any other person in the galaxy would be preferable to that sithspawn.”

Ben reared back as if struck. “ _Sithspawn_?” It was a strange slur to use for his mother. “What are you talking about?”

The aqualish regarded him with four eyes, rubbing the front of their tusks in another gesture Ben couldn’t parse. It was for the best. He didn’t want to know what this being thought of what it said next. “The Senator from Riosa just showed a holo of Bail Organa himself telling her she was Darth Vader’s daughter. Can you imagine! She’s been one of the most influential people in the galaxy.” They turned back to the holo. “Who knew we had Darth Vader among us again. Maybe she is a Sith.”

Ben took a step back. Then another. A cold feeling washed over him.

“That can’t be right.”

The aqualish hooted, pointing at the holo. “Here’s the part where he plays it! You just wait!”

And true enough, as Ben watched, Bail Organa, who he’d seen in holos and paintings since he was a boy, came on in a tiny, filtered holo in the hand of the speaker, and Ben could just make out the heartfelt message to his mother.

About how she was Darth Vader’s daughter.

Ben took another step back. The aqualish turned back. “Maybe it’s her brother’s the Sith, and that son of hers. Maybe all those goodwill trips you always hear about are to brainwash people into the Republic. That’s the only way it would work. And they got all the kids after them now too.”

Ben was out the door before the aqualish finished. His ears were roaring. He could feel himself… getting lost. He’d have to tell Luke. Luke would want to hear it from him before he saw it on the news. Like Ben did. That was the worst.

But he couldn’t doubt Bail Organa. His reputation was unimpeachable. If he had said it, to his mother, it must be true. Could the holo be faked? That seemed more likely than… than that his grandfather was Darth Vader. But he’d seen holos of Bail Organa his whole life. He knew what the man looked like, and he knew what a fake holo looked like. Even over the poor reception on Tatooine, he had recognized his grandfather.

Or was he?

Ben wanted to be sick. Darth Vader’s grandson. He felt dirty. He wavered between believing it with certainty and rationalizing it as fake. All thoughts of the rightness of the Senate fell away as he mounted his small speeder and flew across the desert, locking on to the feeling of his uncle with a singleminded purpose, using the unusually powerful waves of the Force to guide him.

He knew it was the fear, fueling him like this, and it was Dark. He would have to be less afraid, would have to school himself. He felt more, and a wash of sickness, thinking that the Dark was in his blood more than he knew. Of course it was. He was Darth Vader’s grandson. Darth Vader. The Emperor’s right hand man. A warrior, a terror, a symbol of the power of the Empire.

No. That wasn’t right. He would call his mother, and sort this out. It wasn’t true.

He tried to calm himself. It seemed more likely the further he got away from that holo. Of course it was just a little slander. He would still have to tell his uncle about it. Maybe they would be sent to track down the origin of the lie.

Ben didn’t dwell on how he survived the mad rush across the desert to Luke Skywalker, would never know how close he came to death so many times that night. But when he pulled up to the broken hut in the middle of nowhere, their shuttle parked outside, he rushed in.

“Uncle Luke!” he bellowed. “Uncle Luke, it’s Ben! I need… there’s something that happened to mom. You need to hear this. Please, Uncle Luke!”

He closed his eyes, and a low whining escaped his mouth. He attempted to re-focus on Luke’s presence in the Force, get a closer reading on where he was.

Oh shit. The shuttle. He might have already found out. Ben pounded up the ramp, panicking. He didn’t want his Uncle to find out like he did, and he needed to send a message to his mother, what must that have been like on the floor of the Senate, to find out-

He stopped, dead, when he saw Luke at the console. Luke spun to face him, concern plain on his face.

“Ben.”

Ben took three steps up to the copilot’s seat. “Uncle Luke, I was… in a bar, and there’s something, maybe you already heard about it, it’s about mom and-”

“Ben.”

And Ben knew.

In that moment, he knew. It was true. It was no lie. Luke already knew. His mother had known too. Had his father?

And they had never told Ben.

He’d had to find out in a bar, in Anchorhead. Some small moisture farming town on Tatooine. He’d had to find out, among strangers, that he was the grandson of Darth Vader.

Ben shook his head. “No. It’s not true.”

Luke stood. “Ben. I… was almost ready to tell you. You can understand. How this might not be something I want to talk about.”

Ben took another step back. “I don’t understand anything. You told me you killed him.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “He redeemed himself in the end. That was the important part. He turned back to the Light. He… wanted to spare me what had happened to him. So he killed the Emperor. And died.”

“You said… you killed the Emperor. And Darth Vader.” Ben swallowed. “Those were lies too.”

“Ben.” Luke tried to put a hand on Ben’s shoulder, and Ben shook it off violently. “I never… I would have never lied to you.”

“You lied to me my whole life!” Ben was yelling, and he found he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop the rage, the anger, the volume of his voice, the words coming out of his mouth. “My whole life, you told me I came from a long line of Jedi! And it’s not true!”

Luke shook his head, his voice shaking slightly. “It’s true, Ben. Anakin Skywalker… all the stories we told you about him are true. And he turned back to the Light before he died. He died as Anakin Skywalker. Not as Darth Vader.”

“He.” Ben turned away from his uncle. “He was Darth Vader. And he was my grandfather. And you didn’t tell me.” He spun back around. “What else haven’t you told me?”

Luke paused. “That’s it, Ben, I swear. What could be worse than that?”

Ben spoke through gritted teeth, fists clenched, his mind reaching, locking on to his first thought.  Something.  Anything. “I found out that there are criminal cartels running around the Outer Rim today. Why didn’t we stop them? Why didn’t they send us out to help.”

Luke blinked. “I don’t know. It doesn’t… that doesn’t matter right now, Ben.”

“No.” Ben shook his head. He’d gone quiet, in his anger. He needed to leave before… before. He needed to leave. Right now. “That matters more than Darth Vader does. It matters quite a bit more.” He needed to do something else. He needed purpose. He needed to forget. He needed to go back in time three hours.

Ben glanced behind Luke, at the console where the holo would have come through. “But the senate will be talking about mother and Darth Vader. My grandfather. For the foreseeable future. And they won’t listen to this. Won’t do anything about it. Even though it matters more.”

Ben turned and walked away. Got back on his speeder and went across the desert.


	2. Hux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have guessed from the first chapter, they are both filthy, and Tatooine is a dry place. The sex isn't super-rough or painful, but there's a part of my brain that screams when no lube is involved. Sorry.
> 
> Also, because I was using novel references very closely and this bothers me, I wrote the Hux chapter before the relevant bits in _Aftermath_ came out (and posted it the same week it was released), so I discuss his childhood on Arkanis, which was debunked.

Hux leaned back in his chair, overwhelmed, though it was difficult to choose a reason for it. Was it a come-down from the suicide mission? Was it that he had accomplished something he had been trying desperately to do for the entire three years he had been on this forsaken planet? Was it all the cigs he'd had? He wasn’t normally a heavy smoker, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Ben Solo had been too interesting.

And really, that was what his mind kept returning to, over and over, even as he tried to wrap up the administrative odds and ends associated with Rak. Ben Solo. One of the most famous heroes of the galaxy, and he had been completely and utterly clueless.  Hux kept thinking about him, and had a hard time pushing down his anger and frustration.  Focusing on what was the greatest accomplishment of Hux's career should have been easy.  But Ben was tied up with it, and it was proving difficult not to think about Ben.

As he entered the base in Anchorhead after dismissing Ben, he realized there was very little he could do about Rak’s Palace from his desk. He sent a unit out with equipment to guard it overnight.  They would run through the place to make sure no additional members of the gang had entered, then guard it from a potential take-back. It was a powerful fortress, and perhaps Hux had been foolish to leave it early, but he had no way of contacting his base - he had expected to die there, and hadn’t brought a comm. And he and Ben couldn’t hold it themselves, no matter how good it had felt to take it.

He would need to take an inventory and re-distribute all the supplies and resources. He could do that himself, but he also had lieutenants that would do it for him. Perhaps he would make the final decision, though. It would feel good to have control of the basics again.

He put his head in his hands, trying to block out the sensory details of his dark, windowless office. Air filtration chugged loudly overhead. They could get supplies from the First Order to keep that working (realistically, they would die without it, they would be baked alive in the building), but Hux didn’t like to waste the request until the parts were absolutely necessary. There were better things to ask the First Order for, things that the people of the planet needed worse than Hux needed his office to smell nice.

But the office was one of many reasons he had given up yesterday. Even with his eyes closed, he could see the flickering light of the unstable hololamp shine unnaturally down, yellow on the screens he arrayed across his desk, not bright enough to penetrate the corners of the room. The color made everything look dirtier. Hux was a clean person, even on Tatooine, but he couldn’t… actually clean, without water. His office smelled of sweat and caf and stale rations. It smelled like a locker room, as did the rest of the base. Grime and a kind of dry rot crept up from the bottom of the dull gray metal walls. Hux had tried to scour it off for the first several months, but strenuous exertion only resulted in a lessening of the color of the mold. He could never get rid of it entirely without water-based cleaning product, and it always came back within a month. Hux had eventually conceded to it.

The water rationing was the most difficult for Hux, the hardest thing to come to terms with as a luxury. Hux made a once-a-month bathing schedule for the entire base, which was the bare minimum before filth turned into hygiene issues. The medical tech was stopped by the gangs, and it was hard to tell what they’d have access to at any given time.  So he requested water, always, because they could bathe in it, and it was easier to request more when it was confiscated.  He requested medical tech too, but the order was less free with that. But bathing still felt decadent when there were so many dying of dehydration in the towns as the moisture crops were stolen. Hux had a hard time balancing hygiene against actual lives lost.

The day he realized he couldn’t use a sonic shower regularly was the day he’d begun regretting his posting.

So Hux had to be filthy all the time. Even when he was clean, he had to wear dirty clothes, which they did not have the resources to clean. He had a uniform he wore when he was cleaner, but even that was beginning to ripen after three years. He felt disgusting. Not himself. He felt like one of the rabble he was trying to help, and it was… difficult, for him. He needed to feel above it all to do his job, to direct, to do what had to be done.

Being dirty made him angry. It made him feel like he wasn’t doing enough, and he knew that was true. Until today, when most of his problems had been solved.

The First Order would respond with immediate backup to news of a Hutt threat, but local gangs… were what Hux was here to stop. None of his pleas that this gang was well-supplied and not within his power to defeat were taken seriously. The air support was normally a viable option, but not when it would obliterate nearly six months of food, water, tech, and other things the populations here so desperately needed. Unless Rak was going to steal from them for six more months, it would be too much lost. Rak had known that, and it was infuriating.

He regretted that it had been Ben Solo that killed her, and not himself. He would have liked to have done it with his bare hands. He had pictured it as a suicide charge. This outcome was probably better, but he still felt a petty tug of regret and jealousy that he didn’t get to end his enemy’s life himself.

Which left Ben Solo. Hux opened his eyes and stared at the wall, running his fingers through his greasy hair and felt the heavy, suffocating layer of filth that coated his skin and uniform.

Ben Solo had been unexpected. He was every bit as handsome and powerful as the holos described. He was all the propaganda that the New Republic needed to show prosperity. He was a poster boy for everything they wanted from the galaxy. And he was also kept entirely ignorant of anything that they didn’t have control of. The officers and troops in the First Order had been told that the New Republic suppressed anything that made them look bad - it was one of the lines of propaganda they used to bring planets under their protection. Hux knew it to be somewhat true, because it would be foolish not to. But he hadn’t realized that one of their most powerful figureheads could be so clueless and uninformed about the supposed reach of the New Republic.

Hux found it infuriating and insulting that Ben Solo had known so little. _Ben Solo_. How could he have never contemplated follow-through on legislation? Wondered where the money went? Wondered what the logic was behind decisions made in a committee, and who it would benefit the most? And they weren’t using him for martial control, as Hux thought, which seemed like a foolish waste. He was more than capable. Hux imagined himself using Ben as a resource, dispatching him for issues like this one. A problem Hux had struggled with for months that had no foreseeable solution, solved in a single afternoon. It was amazing.  And the New Republic was just letting him… what? Study quietly by himself? Using him for photo ops with Luke Skywalker to show how happy everyone was in the Core, that we could all feel safe with Ben and Luke, the last Jedi, out patrolling the galaxy?

Except they weren’t patrolling at all. Ben had never even seen real combat.

Ben had been made for combat, had been trained and honed and never used. It was an incredible waste that made Hux angry, though not really angry with Ben. Hux thought of Ben’s lightsaber sizzling through limbs, necks, arteries. He thought of the blood that hadn’t spilled, that had instead been cauterized and burned away. He thought of squeezing the trigger of his blasters, and watching the life go out of the eyes of his surprised quarry. And he thought of the look on Ben’s face as he ended life.

Hux closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair again. Fuck, he wanted him. It had been all he could do not to take him in a pile of bodies in the palace. His infuriating ignorance was a turn-off, and if Hux was honest with himself, he was ashamed of his state, and that he had tried to get them both killed. But they both would have deserved it.

He thought that maybe they both deserved better now, too. On the entire ride back to the base, he had been entertaining fantasies of being Ben Solo’s contact with the First Order.  Really changing Ben’s mind about how he could be used to handle threats, and Ben’s influence in the Senate causing an improvement of life in the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions. He imagined Ben coming when called, Hux having the power to send him out where he was needed. He thought Ben would do it. But this fantasy required Hux to be somewhere other than Tatooine.

If Ben really knew as little as he did, he likely had no influence at all with the Senate, Jedi or no. Realistically, Ben would come back tomorrow, or he wouldn’t, and Hux would never see him again. But even without his wild imaginings of controlling Ben Solo, Hux hoped that his eradication of the gang and securing the supply lines onto Tatooine would be enough for a promotion away from this planet.

He had volunteered for a post on an Outer Rim planet, had wanted very badly to come here. He thought he could do the most good planetside, and that it would be a good experience and a fast way to action and a promotion. But mostly it was dirty, unforgiving work, and he had run himself into a dead end. He had no illusions about how his commanders would see this victory. It was Hux finally doing his job. It would not gain him a promotion.

He sighed, resigning himself to going outside to smoke again. It wasn’t a habit he engaged in this much, really, and he was certain the buzzing, unsettled feeling he had was partially a result of the cigarras. But he wasn’t thinking straight, so he might as well do it outside in the frigid desert air. He grabbed his stained teal tunic and black overcoat, putting them on open, one over the other, and doing up the fastenings as he walked. There was still an inner voice that chastised him for walking around the base with his tunic open, undershirt on display, the very image of the dirty, slovenly soldier. But the chastisement was rote now, and he couldn’t be bothered to alter his behavior. He made his way from his office to the back exit of the compound, running his hand through his hair to push it off his forehead.

Once outside, he slid down to the ground and drew in on his cigarra, focusing on the glowing tip in the darkness. They didn’t light the back area - why would they? Certainly any soldier that got ambushed from here deserved a quick death. And besides, Hux thought there might be many such as himself that fantasized about being put out of their misery. He let his eyes wander up to the spill of stars across the sky, then back out into the dimly-illuminated desert landscape, still empty.

Hux liked looking across the desert of Tatooine. On Arkanis, there had been gentle rain, a storm, sometimes rainbows, sometimes the breeze tossing droplets of water from dark emerald leaves around the buildings at the edges of Scaparus Port, where the green wilderness encroached on the gray and browns of the city. The wild edges of the city, the smaller communities, had been his favorite.

He had taken it all for granted, of course.  He liked burning the view of the desert in his mind now, cataloging every detail. If he was ever stationed elsewhere, he could summon the vivid memory of this place and remember that he'd had it much worse, and that he'd earned whatever came after this.

Here, he could stare at the shifting sand, the twin suns. Hux did not see the beauty in either, despite looking ardently for it. Sometimes, he was treated to the sight of fauna, more rare on Tatooine than Arkanis. On Arkanis, this would be birds and bats drifting through the air currents, snapping insects out of the air, or a jerrek washing itself in a pool, an orna rooting through garbage. Here, there were lizards that ate each other. Without exception. Larger ones ate the smaller ones. Hux had no idea what was at the bottom of the food chain, as there was nothing passive on this planet for the smallest life to consume. As far as he could tell, the sentients were the weak link. Hux liked the idea of the sentients being something that needed protected from the planet.

Once, he had ridden a speeder out to the Great Pit of Carkoon, to look at the dying sarlacc, heaved half-exposed up onto the surface and looted by the scavengers. Under the baking sun, it had stank so badly that Hux had been sick before drawing close to its mouth at the center of its body, and had needed to wear a breathing apparatus to be near. He had stared into its mouth, its round rows of teeth, and felt its humid breath rush up to the speeder.

There were very few sarlaccs known in the galaxy, and of course there was one on Tatooine. Why wouldn’t there be? This planet was something that would consume all life, if given a chance. And yet, even this, this consumer of all life, was being consumed by Tatooine.

The planet would consume him too, eventually. He had tried to give himself to it today, only to find that he had, perhaps, found one of the largest predators in the galaxy, and that the planet had found the two of them unpalatable.

Hux would take heart from that, save for the fact that he would probably never see Ben Solo again. Without him, he was sure a second attempt to throw his life away would succeed. Perhaps right now, with his cigarra providing a target for any passing predator.

He willed his mind to blankness, away from Ben Solo and toward the task of scheduling the cleansing and removal of supplies from the compound. He tried to focus on the good, and how much people would need them. He was working up the rudiments of a plan, and had just finished his cigarra, when the door opened, and one of the Lieutenants rushed out.

“Sir,” he began hastily, shuffling from foot to foot before finally remembering to snap to attention. Hux had stopped bothering to enforce such protocol long ago, though it had been so ingrained in them that they mostly did it anyway. “There’s a holotransmission you really should see.”

Hux frowned, pitching the end of his cigarra away. “From Command?”

“No, sir. From the floor of the New Republic Senate.”

That was even more confusing, and potentially very bad. “Does it pertain to Tatooine?” Perhaps Ben had sent word back to the New Republic faster than Hux had anticipated.

“No, sir. Easier if you come in and see for yourself.”

Hux stood and followed the Lieutenant into the comm chamber. The reception on Tatooine was surprisingly good, likely due to the sparse population and air traffic in the atmosphere to cause interference. He was trying to make newer comm technology more widely available in the settlements, though this was further down the list than water and medical supplies.

The other three officers stationed on Tatooine were gathered around a holo of a young human senator Hux could not name. Hux vaguely recognized him as a vocal figurehead for the centrists.

His eyebrows rose when he saw the delight on the faces of all the other officers. They hadn’t looked this happy when Hux had delivered the news about Rak earlier.

“What could the Senate have possibly done that would have you all grinning like idiots?” Hux asked, maybe more sharply than he should have. Then again, it was rather offensive that _a speech from the New Republic Senate_ was somehow more exciting than the unexpected defeat of Rak Kuat. Though, admittedly, he had underplayed that a bit. He had left out Ben Solo and claimed it had only been a desperate one-man charge. They didn’t believe him, but knew better than to question him.

When the only response from the officers was the loss of their grins, Hux turned his scowl to the holo.  "Did they pass something of note?  Are they finally marshaling some sort of military?"

“Oh, it wasn’t anything they passed,” a petty officer, Warren, volunteered. Of the four officers below Hux, he was the most likely to speak his mind. He was an idiot most of the time, but Hux appreciated the fact he wasn’t easily intimidated. That was useful. “It was a declaration that they made.”

This was even more puzzling. “What bearing could it have on us?” A feeling twisted in his gut, and his earlier thought returned to him. Had Ben reported on them? Had it gotten back that fast? But- no. A transmission took time to get to Hosnian Prime from here. For Ben to have transmitted, then for a decision to be made, and received… it would take longer than a cycle.

But the sick feeling let Hux know that he had taken a very bad risk, and one that could have unexpected repercussions at any time in the future. Hux would never see it coming if Ben suddenly decided to find the First Order two years down the line.

The lieutenant that had fetched him from outside leaned forward. “What happened at the end? Did she give a speech?”

Another lieutenant turned around. “No. The Senate was in an uproar. The transmission cut out, I think they called an end to the session-”

This was too much. Hux stepped closer, snapping out a command. “Let me see it.”

All the faces turned toward the holo of the Senator as it started once again.

Hux covered his mouth as he realized that one of the heroes of the Rebellion, the head of the populist party, the person most likely to be voted First Senator…

Was Darth Vader’s daughter.

It was beautiful.

Luke Skywalker, the prime protector of the galaxy, one of the Last Jedi, was Darth Vader’s son. And Ben Solo? He was Darth Vader’s grandson.

Hux lowered his hand before the end of the transmission, before any of the other officers saw, and took a step back. When it was over, the others turned to one another, grinning again. It didn’t affect them, not really, but it was a particularly juicy piece of gossip.

“Do you think she would have taken the Senate?”

“I don’t know. Do you think she knew?”

“She couldn’t have. Did you see her face?”

“That could have been an act.”

“I don’t think it was. But I don’t think she was surprised by the news, either. I think she knew.”

“Wasn’t she tortured by Darth Vader? Didn’t he make her watch him blow up Alderaan?”

“Wasn’t that Tarkin?”

“It was both.”

Hux took another step back as he let the gossip wash over him. “I’m going to… I’ll be in my office,” he tried, straightening himself, forcing his posture into parade rest, trying not to look shaken. The others quieted and looked over at him. Warren grinned.

“Orders, sir?” Lieutenant Borren tried, ever eager to please. Hux liked that about her. It was good, to have orders, something to do, when… there was this.

“No, Lieutenant. Just. As you were. I’ll have a new set of orders for daybreak. At ease until then.” He turned, then looked back to them. “Guard the base well. It’s possible there will be some backlash from populist sympathizers that see us as trumped-up Imperials that were planning something. There aren’t likely to be very many here, but still, we don’t want anything ugly to happen tonight.”

At that, all the officers straightened. “Sir. We’ll post extra troops on the doors. Do you want them outside?”

Hux hesitated. They’d be sitting ducks outside, and it was ungodly cold. The odds of a crowd breaking into the compound were low, and they had a tactical advantage, since a mob would have to come in through the doors. He couldn’t bring himself to have them station troops outside. It seemed a waste.

“No. Just have extra teams on all entrances, and have them watch the feeds from outside to make sure a crowd isn’t gathering.”

“And if they do?”

Hux raised his eyebrows. “Let me know, Lieutenant,” he responded drily. He turned again, throwing back over his shoulder, “Warren, be ready for the morning to go to Rak’s palace. You and Illi will be leading the troops in the neutralization and clean-out.”

He heard Warren sigh. “Yes, sir.” Hux knew his hesitation.

“It’s not a death trap. I saw it myself. There are bodies to prove it. Be wary of anyone who may have entered through a hidden passage overnight. If they do, it’s an abattoir in there. They’re likely to flee, thinking that we found an extra set of teeth. Just be careful.”

“Yes, sir.”

And with that, Hux walked back to his office, closing the door and locking it. He glanced at the cot in the corner, then went and stretched out on it. He had quarters, but he rarely used them. They weren’t private, and his office was. It was also much larger than the room he shared with the other officers.  It was also cooler, as a result, but not too cold.

He decided to leave his paperwork and directives until the morning, his mind buzzing with Darth Vader. He shucked off his coat, tunic, undershirt, and pants, stripping down to his briefs. He put out the lights and stretched out on the cot, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the air scrubbers kicking on. He twisted the ID tags around his neck idly.

Ben Solo was Darth Vader’s grandson.

He thought about Ben again, thought of him slicing through his enemies, the burning smell of flesh, the absence of blood, the neat way the limbs parted from the bodies. The screams.

He had fought exactly like Darth Vader, the Empire’s bogeyman, the one who had been sent into nests of vipers repeatedly to clear them out. It was rumored that nobody could touch him, before Luke Skywalker.

And perhaps that made more sense now. Did Vader die because he was unable to kill his son? Did Vader know him? Did Luke Skywalker know he was killing his father? Something must have happened there. It was hard to believe a rank amateur from this planet could kill Darth Vader without extenuating circumstances. This was the same man who had tortured his own daughter and made her watch him blow up her foster parents. Hux couldn’t decide if it was more believable that he didn’t know his own children - that they’d perhaps been born without his knowledge from an indiscretion - or that he was ruthless enough to have done everything he had while knowing.

Hm.

So did Ben know? Hux didn’t think so. He seemed to have a genuine aversion to the subject when they had spoken earlier. Then again, maybe he just didn’t like talking about it. Too much to lay on a stranger. The dirty family secret.

He closed his eyes and rolled over on his side when a bitter realization hit him. With this holobroadcast, it was very unlikely that Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker would stay on Tatooine through tomorrow. They were probably leaving tonight. Hux was disappointed in himself for how much he was looking forward to Ben coming back. He had been planning it in the back of his mind, even while telling himself Ben would forget him when he woke up in the morning.

Hux had flirted with Darth Vader’s grandson, and had very nearly fucked him. He sighed, and reached into the waistband of his briefs, teasing over himself with his fingers. He rolled onto his back again, reaching under his cot and for a bottle of alcohol. Imported Arkanis brandy was easier to get than water here, and they drank it on their off shifts instead of water. Hux hated it, but had grown used to it over the years. Normally he only took small amounts to help him sleep, only seeking obliteration when he had more than a cycle alone with his thoughts and bad decisions.

He propped himself up on an elbow and took a drink, fondling himself. He had no lube for this, it was too much of a luxury on this planet. His dry, dirty hands did not lend themselves to pleasure, and he had to get quite the fantasy going before his dick was leaking enough to stroke smoothly. But he closed his eyes and pictured his earlier battle. Ben had stopped the blaster bolt fired by Rak, held it in midair, and sent it back through her head. Hux’s problems had been over that easy. He had vaporized the heads of half her guard before they could react. Ben had bisected the rest, sweeping his blade under them to knock out their legs before giving each a separate _coup de grace_. It was indeed a mercy, compared to what Hux had wanted to do to them.

He felt himself growing erect, and he imagined the muscles of Ben’s arms straining as he used the sword to cut down his opponents. Hux should have fought back to back with him, but he couldn’t look away. He fired from behind Ben instead, Ben insisting on taking point into most of the rooms in the palace, until he declared they’d killed every being there.

Hux teased his thumb over the head of his dick, just beginning to slick, as he thought of the dark, curly hair, damp with sweat and sticking in ringlets to Ben’s neck. He thought of the sweat running down Ben's temple and over his corded neck. Hux wanted to lick it off. He thought of the hard look on Ben's face, one that had looked innocent and slightly stupid only hours earlier.

Hux used his fingers to tease out the precome and slide it down and around his erection, beginning to pump it. That ridiculous speeder ride back to Anchorhead. The feel of Ben’s pectorals pressed against his back, Ben’s forehead pressed against his shoulder. Hux had know, then, that Ben would want him, and he hoped he would ask. Perhaps what he’d said earlier about Hux being too dirty was true. But he had asked later. And Hux had hesitated. Mostly out of vanity - he hated being seen like this by an outsider. But it had also probably been a good idea to abstain, for a number of reasons.

He allowed himself to picture the liaison that had never happened. How they would go back to Ben’s shuttle, and Ben would have a shower. Hux would take one, bringing Ben in with him. He would tease Ben’s hair full of soap, let the suds slide down his chest as Hux took his mouth. The water would run down both of them, and it would feel so good, hot, and then maybe cold as the shuttle’s reserves ran out. Hux would grab a handful of Ben’s hair and pull, and Ben would let him, those brown eyes squinting up at him, full of want.

Hux began to stroke harder as he imagined leading Ben into a bed. It would be small, but they would make it work. He would tongue Ben open, taste him first, hear the filthy moans coming from one of the last Jedi in the galaxy, who had offered himself to Hux, and in this fantasy, Hux had him at his mercy.

He would have swallowed Ben’s erection, gone down on him until Ben came, directly into his throat, and Hux would have swallowed it all, tasting the Force user’s spend, the powerful grandson of Darth Vader. Then Ben would have handed him lube and laid on his back, knees to his chest, a flush across his face and neck. Hux would have used his fingers, listening to Ben moan again as he gentled him open. It would be difficult, Ben would be tight, but he would want Hux’s fingers, begin to buck back on him, the excessive amount of lube Hux would use slicking his thighs until it would drive Hux half-crazy. Then Hux would enter, and he would be tight, so tight, and Ben would grasp Hux around the waist with those massive, muscular, slick thighs as Hux fucked into him.

Hux yanked down his shorts with one hand and came into the other, not wanting to stiffen them with come and not have a way to wash them. It hit him far harder than usual, and lasted longer. He needed to cup his hand against his body to catch everything. He gasped and caught his breath, taken aback by how vivid it had been.

He bent forward and frowned at the copious amount of come. Usually when he did this, he forced himself, and it was a sad thing, somewhat against his will.

He had no sink or towel to wipe himself up with, and he grimaced as he brought his hands to his own face and licked the come from his filthy hands. Not his favorite thing. He slid his briefs the rest of the way down his legs and kicked them off across the room, then ordered the lights off. The room was plunged into complete darkness.

He washed the experience down with more brandy, and proceeded to slowly drain off the whole bottle, extending the fantasy. He drifted off to sleep, drunk and lost and relaxed for the first time in what felt like years. He thought about what it would have been like to fuck Darth Vader’s grandson, then bring him back to the First Order. He would have been promoted. Ben would have insisted that they work together, because it had gone so well that first time. Hux would send him out with other soldiers, again and again, and they would be a scourge. He drifted off into an alcoholic stupor, bottle rolling from his fingers, ID tags clacking around his neck. He’d had them stolen more than once this way. The lock on his office wasn't a deterrent for sullen staff who had been dressed down by Hux, and they'd gotten to him both here and during Hux's rougher nights in town, when he occasionally allowed himself to indulge in glitterstim and more adventurous sex.  That was one of the many reasons Hux had stopped bothering with discipline.  The retaliation just wasn't worth it.

He woke abruptly to klaxons ringing throughout the compound. He sat up and gripped at his hips, reaching for his absent blasters. He was still drunk, and completely disoriented in the total darkness. The blue emergency lights clicked on overhead, and he couldn’t remember where he was or what he had been doing. He was naked, and his clothes were on a pile on the floor-

It was the teal uniform that brought him back to himself. He was on Tatooine. Of course. Of all the times he had tried to make himself forget, he had had success the one night he had told the other officers to practice extra vigilance.

He pulled his briefs on, then his pants, and had his blaster belt around his waist and nearly buckled, contemplating whether it was worth it to run into the compound without a shirt when his door shrieked and buckled in. It flew sideways on its track and slammed into the wall in a fully open position, bouncing almost completely closed before flying open again. The sirens blared, the lights strobed blue, and Ben Solo walked in, looking like a nightmare incarnate.

He turned his fury to Hux, who was standing next to the cot, his pants slouched around his hips. Hux wasn’t sure if he should draw on Ben, knew it likely wouldn’t make a difference even if he did. His head was still throbbing, his vision swimming from the liquor. He may not make the shot, even at this distance. He thought of the blaster bolt going through Rak’s head. He swallowed. Schooled his face.

Ben stared at him for a moment, disheveled and wearing the same clothes he had been earlier. Hux wasn’t sure what was happening, what he should say to the other man.

Luckily, Ben broke the silence.

“Did you see?”

Hux blinked, confused, thinking of the blaster bolt again. He kept his face straight, not showing Ben his thoughts, scrambling madly, trying to remember why Ben Solo would be breaking into his base, into his office. How had he even been able to find him?

Then he remembered. “The senate broadcast.” He nodded. “Yes.” The steadiness of his voice surprised him.  He was glad for it.

Ben still looked furious, fists clenched at his sides, jaw muscles straining, not really seeing Hux. Hux wasn’t sure if he was dangerous or not, and Ben was so powerful. Ben could end him in a second if Hux said the wrong thing.

Ben shook his head. “They. Didn’t tell me. All that from earlier, that you told me, that they’d been keeping things from me. And this.” He shook his head again, and slouched against the stained wall next to the door. He brought his fist back and slammed it behind himself, creating a large dent into the metal.

Hux blinked at him, then looked back out the doorway. Then back to Ben. He didn’t know what to say, so he fell back on the comfort of procedure. He went over to his desk and used his datapad to comm Lieutenant Illi.

“Status report. What is the threat?”

“Sir. One man. He… I don’t even know how he did it. He blew in the rear exit, and walked past the troopers as if they were nothing. Video shows him…” The lieutenant trailed off, and Hux glanced over to Ben.

“Did you kill my troopers?”

“No,” Ben growled, meeting his eyes. “I didn’t. But I could have.”

Hux nodded, still dazed, trying hard to pretend control he didn’t have. “Yes.” He turned back to the datapad. “Lieutenant. Silence the alarms. Seal the rear entrance.” Hux paused, grasping for the presence of mind to remember something important that he had ordered, some other threat that wasn’t Ben Solo. It came to him, suddenly. “Is there any unrest in the city?”

“No, sir. Just the one lone combatant. It almost looked like… magic, the way he blew everything in. Explosions, but without explosions.”

“Yes Lieutenant. I found him. He’s with me. I’ll handle it.” He cut off the comm, and the alarms stopped soon after. The yellow light of the office came up, and Hux looked at the ruin of his office door, then back to Ben, who had slid down the wall and onto the floor, hunched into himself. He sighed, and wondered just how volatile Ben’s temper was. Should he gamble? His mind was spinning. What was Ben doing here? Was he looking for an ‘I told you so’ from Hux?

He tried to bring his thoughts back into order. Start from the beginning. He was upset. Hux knew why he was upset. “They didn’t tell you Darth Vader was your grandfather. Did they know?”

Ben’s face was in his hands. “My uncle knew. I think my mother did too. Probably my father. Probably even Chewbacca. Everyone in my family but me.”

Hux shook his head in disbelief. Luke Skywalker had known. But… “Why would they keep something like that from you?” He sat down on the floor next to Ben, put his arms around his knees, and leaned forward.

“I don’t know!” Ben looked over at him. His eyes were dry. Hux had been worried that he’d have to console Ben while he was crying. “But it’s the same as what you told me earlier. They’re just… keeping me in the dark.” He turned away from Hux, staring at the opposite wall. “I think they’re telling me what they want me to know. They’re not…” He trailed off.

But Hux knew. He knew very well how to control people, their thoughts and opinions, how to get them to follow.

“They won’t let you make your own decisions about things, because you might see something they don’t want you to.” Hux sighed again. This was playing nicely to his earlier conversation. A little too nicely. “I wouldn’t know how to deal with that kind of betrayal.”

Ben looked over at him from the side. “What you told me earlier. There was truth in some of it, but I think you’re as blinded by Imperialism as I was by the New Republic optimism.”

Hux snorted. It was probably true, but he wasn’t going to concede the point, or listen to New Republic screed from Ben right now. He also took a moment to appreciate the ‘was’ in Ben’s statement. “So what decisions of your own have you come to?”

Ben shook his head, and looked over at Hux. “I can’t go back, Armitage. I don’t think I can ever look at my uncle again.” He turned away. “Or my mother or father, I suppose.”

Hux hated the use of his first name, and he also wanted to press more about why the betrayal from his uncle had been worse than that of his mother or father. But a type of giddiness rose up through him, and he had to push it down before it surfaced and spoiled everything. Nothing had changed. Ben was still transient. He wasn’t here for Hux. Even if he was right now. Hux shouldn’t, couldn’t trust it. He was drunk, and Ben was here, and he’d sleep off his hangover tomorrow and Ben would be gone and everything would be the same. He needed to talk himself out of what he was daring to hope.

“Don’t you think you should consider this for a few days? Stay in Anchorhead, see how you feel? Maybe you’ll have changed your mind. You’ll want to comm your uncle, have a talk with him. Make amends.”

Ben clenched his fist, stood up, and kicked Hux’s desk, leaving an enormous dent in the front. “I don’t want to talk to him again. There’s nothing he can say to me that would… that would make sense. That would be a good reason to keep this from me.” He turned to look at Hux, furious.

Hux blinked up at him. Ben was silent. Hux was silent. Hux wanted to ask. He wasn’t sure if he could force it out. It was unlike Hux not to be decisive. But he could feel this as a possible beginning to the rest of his life. The hope was an ugly thing that he was so used to crushing. He had felt this earlier and didn’t do it. It had still seemed like a good decision, even later. But he regretted it, even knowing that he had done the right thing. He didn’t want to regret this. But he didn’t want to hope, either. It just wasn’t something one did.

“You’ll come with me, then.” It was out before he could take it back. Hux’s voice was low, quiet, almost a whisper. He hated the way it sounded. He cleared his throat, and made up for the weakness by scowling at Ben, whose face lost its tension at the statement.

“You help people.”

Hux nodded, not taking his eyes from Ben.

Ben’s voice lowered, to match the volume of Hux. “You’d let me… I could do something like we did earlier today.”

Hux swallowed, wanting more of the brandy, feeling his head swimming still from his earlier consumption. “That would be your job. You were good at it.” Hux stood, still not looking away.

Ben didn’t say anything. He closed the distance between them and crushed his lips against Hux’s. Hux gripped Ben’s biceps and squeezed, and Ben put his hands on Hux’s waist. Hux felt like Ben could swallow him, and he suddenly remembered how dangerous Ben was. He was angry now. Was this smart? Could Hux keep control of Ben? He pulled away. Both of them were breathing hard.

Could Hux keep control of himself?

Hux didn’t want to believe that he could possibly get more than just having Ben tonight. It would be enough. More than this would be… too much. Too fast. Too good. “You can fuck me and not join the First Order. You can still go back to your family.”

Ben pressed his forehead against Hux’s. “I don’t want to. They lied to me.” Ben pulled back, and the light in his eyes suddenly got hard. “I don’t take betrayal well.”

“That still doesn’t mean you should throw your life away.”

Ben captured his mouth again. Hux tasted the salt heat of him before Ben pulled away. “No. But I want to. I want to decide something for myself. This is it.”

Hux exhaled. This was a bad thing. A bad choice.

He pictured the comm he would send to the Star Destroyer in this quadrant. _New recruit - Jedi Ben Solo. Come pick up immediately._

He would have to encode it so it went through to high command, so that it wouldn’t look like the work of that lazy Colonel Yom. They would come and take Ben and leave Hux here, with no credit and no Jedi.

And Hux very much wanted to stay with Ben for the ride. His work just became more interesting.

Ben’s eyes were closed, his forehead pressed to Hux’s, his hands still around Hux’s waist. Ben could kill him with a thought. “Take me to meet them. Tell me where I need to go.”

Hux closed his eyes and breathed against Ben’s mouth. “Tell them you won’t take orders from anyone else. Take me with you. Get me out of here.”

Ben exhaled. “Okay.”

Hux leaned forward and bit Ben's lip. He pulled back, exhaling slightly into Ben’s mouth, keeping his eyes closed, hovering very close to his face. He could feel the heat radiating from Ben’s skin, could feel something crawling over his. “You’re an idiot. A volatile, dangerous one.” He opened his eyes again to look into Ben’s.

“I’m Darth Vader’s grandson.”

Hux closed his eyes and tried to imagine telling him he had just masturbated to the thought. He probably shouldn’t.

Ben pushed him backwards and onto the cot. Hux frowned as he looked up at him, then to the door. Anyone could walk in and see them, now that the door had been broken open.

But Hux found he didn’t care. He’d walked into sex plenty of times in the compound. They were all human, after all. And sometimes their partners weren’t. He thought about a random trooper or officer seeing him with Darth Vader’s grandson. Would they recognize him? They hadn’t earlier. But maybe they would now. He closed his eyes and shivered.

Hux leaned back against the metal wall, against the mold creeping up from the bottom, and watched as Ben threw Hux’s blaster belt aside and slid his pants further down his hips. Hux shuddered at the thought of Ben’s mouth on him when he was this dirty, and he fisted a hand in Ben’s hair, wrestling with himself as to whether to pull him away or not.

Ben looked up at him, confused. “You don’t like this?”

Hux exhaled. He hated admitting this, but it was a problem. Better to get it out. “Not… exactly. I like this. It’s just…”

Ben frowned further. “I thought you were looking forward.”

Hux let out a low sound of protest. “It’s that… I’m dirty. I wanted to fuck in the shower on your shuttle.”

Ben smirked, and leaned up to nose at Hux’s collarbone. “I don’t really care. I like the way you smell.”

Hux shuddered. “Disgusting. Don’t say that.”

Ben’s eyes were on Hux’s, mischievously, and he trailed his tongue up Hux’s side, along his prominent ribs and to the center of his chest. It was awful.

Hux curled his fingers in Ben’s wind-tangled hair and shuddered under the feeling of his tongue. He could feel the grit that had blown into his hair and stuck in the sweat on his fingers, he could feel Ben’s tongue tracing through the film of salty sweat on his chest, across his freckled pectorals, his tongue lapping at and around his nipple. Ben was far cleaner than anyone Hux had been with recently, but still…

“Enough of that,” Hux said firmly, yanking Ben’s head away from his chest.

Ben’s eyes glittered, and Hux hated whatever this was that had come to the front. Ben was dangerous, he had known that when they cleared out the palace. But Hux hadn’t pictured him dangerous like this.

Ignoring the warnings blaring through his head, Hux sank his teeth into the meat of Ben’s shoulder and clenched his bare legs around Ben’s abdomen, around the tunic he was still wearing. He used his thighs to lever himself closer, grinding into his hips.

“Keep your mouth off me,” Hux hissed in his ear.

Ben’s hand found Hux’s thigh, and squeezed. “So shy. Then keep your mouth on me. When it comes off, I’ll start again.”

Hux found Ben’s mouth and yanked his hair, kissing him roughly again, mostly to make him stop talking. Experimentally, he drug his lips across the rough stubble of Ben’s face, down his corded neck, licking the light layer of sweat over Ben’s pulse, which was maddeningly calm.  He trailed his mouth briefly down one of Ben's arms, the skin hot from the sunburn he'd received earlier. He then brought both hands to Ben’s sides and sat back, undoing Ben’s wide belt and fumbling at his tunic and undershirt. A blush had crept into Ben’s cheeks, but he otherwise looked unaffected. It was infuriating.

As was the man’s physique, once Hux got his clothes off. Of course Ben would be one of the most fit men Hux had ever seen, and he had grown up staring at naked humans in top physical condition. He ran his thumbs over Ben’s nipples and nosed down the center of his chest, running his tongue between his pectorals and over his firm stomach before stopping at the trail of hair that led lower.

He glanced up along the plane of Ben’s chest to find the man’s head bent down, looking at him with interest and curiosity. Hux pictured him staring at his hair, dark and oily, sand stuck through it and to his scalp.

Something about the mild look set Hux off. He pulled away from what he was doing, clenching both fists in Ben’s hair and pulling him forward. “I’m sorry, am I boring you?”

Unexpectedly, Hux felt himself slammed up into the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He gasped in full shock for a moment before he registered that the cot was gone and Ben was standing in front of him, hands casually in his pockets.

“That was the second time your mouth stopped its work, Armitage. I told you that I’d have my way with you if it did.”

Hux blinked stupidly before turning his head to stare down at himself. He was pinned bodily to the wall with… what appeared to be nothing. His arms were at his sides, his hands flat and fingers splayed. He tried to pull his hands away, and felt a pressure on all parts of his body. He put his head up in alarm.

“What are you doing?” He managed the question with more annoyance and less fear than he felt.

Ben’s fingers brushed over his belt buckle before they dropped. He took a sudden step forward and braced his hands on either side of Hux’s head. He brought his face close to Hux’s ear. Hux could hear him inhale in his dirty hair, and he shuddered. Ben nosed lower and whispered in his peeling, sunburnt ear.

“Whatever I want.”

Hux strained against the invisible force pushing him against the wall. Ben pulled back and smirked at him, then took a step back, letting Hux fall to the floor.

“I know the feeling is mutual. This is what you want, too.” he stated, too dangerous. Hux felt a maddening and unexpected surge of arousal, felt his body betraying him, even while fury seethed through his mind.  He couldn't believe he was so turned on from this, even after his earlier masturbation session.  He'd never had two rounds in one night before.

Hux blinked, trying to process exactly what was happening, how to wrench control back away from Ben. This wasn’t the Ben Solo from earlier, and Hux needed control back, no matter how good this felt. “What I want?”

Hux turned, glancing around the room. “Fuck,” he muttered. He wanted to fuck Ben, but he didn’t have any lube. His mind provided an image of Ben giving him a blowjob while pinned to the wall, but he didn’t want Ben’s mouth on his own filthy cock. He resigned himself to sucking Ben’s dick, which was something he didn’t typically do.

 _I didn’t_ ask _what you wanted, Armitage. I already know._

Ben’s voice rang through his head, loud and obnoxious and self-important, drowning everything else out. Hux’s head jerked up to look at Ben from his position on the floor just as Ben’s hand went out to slam him against the wall with the invisible Force and for that second Hux felt Ben outside him and in him and everywhere and it was too much. It was incredible. Hux had heard the stories of Jedi magic since he was younger, always with a disdainful twist. He hadn’t believed the Force was real.

He now knew otherwise, and this firsthand experience was too much. It was too much all at once. The Force was real, and so was Ben Solo.

Hux felt the ache of Ben’s Force bearing down on him, the soreness in his back and shoulders as Ben knelt in front of him, glancing up through dark eyelashes and disheveled hair with an absolutely infuriating smug look on his face. The intense sensation of _Ben_ abated somewhat through the haze of his anger at that facial expression.

“You didn’t keep your mouth on me. I told you. It’s my turn.”

And he nuzzled the trail of red hair that led down to Hux’s erection, traitorously hard and throbbing already. Ben ran his nose in and around, and Hux shuddered as he knew what came next.

“Ben, I haven’t bathed in almost a month. This is a desert, and I don’t have clean clothes. Don’t do this.”

Ben grinned and glanced up, before trailing his tongue along the underside of Hux’s cock. Hux groaned.

“I told you, I don’t mind.”

Hux tried to protest, knowing somehow, after speaking to the Ben of earlier today, that Ben would stop if Hux was forceful enough. Ben had taken orders all his life, and Hux had spent his giving them. He was good at ordering his partners around. He enjoyed it, since his authority as Major meant so little.

But here was Ben Solo, on his damn knees, pinning Hux to the wall and sucking his filthy cock. It was too much. Hux closed his eyes and felt the brush of Ben’s teeth against the head of his dick, unable to suppress the sudden low moan in the back of his throat at the sensation.

Ben had his teeth bared as he gently dragged them down and back up, and Hux looked down to see Ben’s lips close back over the tip of his erection and pull away. He closed his eyes again to more fully enjoy the feeling of Ben’s tongue at the slit, lapping up precome as Hux’s dick ached and throbbed. When Ben paused his ministrations, Hux opened his eyes and watched as Ben unfastened his belt and pulled his pants and briefs down to his knees. He sat back to remove them, staring up at Hux with all trace of smugness gone, a kind of desperate heat in his eyes that Hux wished he could unsee.

Then, he took his finger and stuck his tongue out, having kept the spit and precome on his tongue, and slathered it around his index finger. He stretched up on his knees, sliding Hux up the wall to accommodate. The sensation of the Force around him was still uncanny, overwhelming. Hux had never been held against the wall like this by any lover, let alone so… all-inclusively. So thoroughly. He could not move, he was completely at the mercy of Ben’s powers. His dick twitched, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself quiet. Ben didn’t need to know how much Hux was enjoying this.

Ben spread his knees slightly and reached behind to finger himself open as he bent forward, bracing himself against the wall with his free hand by Hux’s hip. He paused, brushing his rough, unshaven cheek inside Hux’s thigh. Hux felt the burn, the sharp pull of the short, stiff hairs against his tender, over-sensitive flesh, and he closed his eyes again to enjoy the sensation more thoroughly. He felt Ben’s cheek leave his thigh, followed shortly by his lips around his dick again.

It was too much, Hux had never been with anyone so accommodating. He stifled another groan, still unwilling to let Ben know just how much he was enjoying this. He clenched his hands into fists, noticing he could move his fingers and wrists if he wished. He suddenly, desperately, needed his hands on Ben, and he found he could move his arms, and he tangled his fingers in Ben’s wind-matted hair, pulling him fully down on his erection.

Ben choked, and Hux felt himself leak into Ben’s mouth. Ben pulled back and away, pulling his hand from behind and sucking on his middle finger, then reaching back around himself and tensing, then relaxing as he presumably fingered himself open wider. Hux blinked down at Ben’s head, digging the nails of one hand into the back of Ben’s neck and somehow, through the haze of arousal and disbelief, tried to picture what was going to happen next.

 _You’re going to fuck me_ , he heard echoing in his mind, and Hux groaned as he felt Ben push inside and outside at the same time, spurting more on his tongue, somehow feeling what Ben felt briefly, saliva running down his chin, thick fingers prying himself open, not quite slick enough.

“We can’t,” Hux murmured reluctantly. He wanted to. Badly. But it would hurt himself and Ben too much. There had been too many tries at this when he was young. And not so young, while stationed on this planet. It wouldn’t be pleasurable.

Hux felt the press of _Ben_  inside him again, the uncanny warmth and arousal in his mind that he knew was his and somehow also Ben’s. He should have hated it, it should have been too much, too invasive. But it wasn’t.

_I want it. I promise it will be good._

Hux blinked down at him and yanked on his hair again. “You promise? Are you going to use a Jedi mind trick on me if it’s not?”

Ben pulled away and grinned up at him, the hard light gone from his eye. “Yes.”

When Hux shuddered, Ben pinched the base of his erection with a thumb and index finger, and the muscles in Hux’s abdomen tensed, his thighs trembled, but he did not come. He was close, though. So close. He still couldn't believe it, that he could still be this excited after coming so hard while masturbating earlier.  Ben was… exceptional.

“You can say it out loud, if you want. I like it.”

Hux stretched his toes, the arousal ebbing in his annoyance. “Your mind-reading isn’t so charming. Is this how you knew to seduce me?”

Ben stood, lowering Hux until his feet touched the floor, gently. Ben looked at him, and Hux could see into him without reading his mind. Could see that he was just as overwhelmed as Hux was, but it was with what he was trying to forget. He was trying to use Hux to erase this evening. It was painful. Ben looked away.

“No. I can read your mind right now because…” he gestured between them. “This lends itself to it.”

Somehow, the insight that Ben was using him as a distraction was annoying, even though Hux knew perfectly well that it was true, and that Ben likely needed it badly. Perhaps it was the sting to his pride, to know that Ben’s mind was elsewhere when Hux was so very much in the moment. It should have been the other way around. Ben should be overwhelmed, and Hux should be thinking of the next step. What would happen to them tomorrow.

Hux stepped forward, placing a hand on Ben’s chest and pushing him backwards to the cot that had been knocked away. Ben kept his gaze averted, silence between them, until his thighs struck the cot and he sat down with an ominous creaking noise from below him. He crossed his arms and looked back at Hux. Hux placed his hands on Ben’s shoulders, his gaze moving up and down to take him in, completely naked.

“Magnificent,” he said aloud, because he knew Ben would hear it anyway. Now that Hux knew Ben could hear all his thoughts, he found it liberating. He didn’t have to guess and pretend. And he wouldn’t have to hide and put on an act. Ben would either take him as he was or leave. There was something appealing about that. His eyes went back to Ben’s. “I don’t want your mouth on my cock right now-”

“Some other time,” Ben arched his eyebrows as Hux’s mouth narrowed and he scowled again. It also robbed him of the control he needed. He pushed Ben onto his back, straddling Ben’s hips, equal parts annoyed and horribly aroused.

“At this rate, never again. If you can read my mind, you’ll know you want to keep your mouth closed right now.”

Ben’s eyebrows went up, and he gave Hux another one of those shit-eating grins that Hux knew meant he was in for something rather unsavory.

Hux’s hands snapped behind his back, his forearms locked and bound tightly together. It forced his shoulders up and his back straight, and he glared down at Ben, flipping his hair out of his face to do it. Ben only smiled, and Hux could feel himself shifting off Ben’s hips and down the cot, the metal rail at the edges biting into his shins.

“What are you doing?”

Ben closed his eyes and tilted his head back, humming aloud.

 _You told me not to speak_.

“Oh, for fuck’s-” Hux shook his head, dismissing his anger and bending at the waist to run his tongue along Ben’s erection, which is what he had been thinking about doing when he straddled Ben. With his hands behind his back, he had trouble keeping his balance. Ben pulled his knees up and spread his thighs wider, and Hux braced his shoulders against them as he took Ben’s entire erection down and swallowed it.

He closed his eyes as Ben cried out and jerked forward, sitting up slightly. This caused him to pull away, and Hux _hmmm_ ed in annoyance as he shifted up to take Ben again.

Ben bent over double and wrapped his hands around Hux’s head, breathing hard. “This is… I’m going to…”

Hux swallowed around Ben, choked, and Ben came suddenly, with a groan and a crushing grip on Hux’s head. Hux coughed and failed to catch Ben’s come in his mouth as he intended, not expecting Ben to succumb so soon. He sat up, hands still bound behind his back, and Ben pulled his own hands away, covering his red face with them and breathing hard.

Hux was quiet for a moment, unsure what to think. “Surely it wasn’t that good.”

Ben spread his fingers slightly, his brown eyes peering at Hux from between them. His hair fell around his face, tangled and ridiculous. “I’ve only had one other person that did that to me. That time wasn’t… it wasn’t as good.”

Hux frowned. “I only took you into my mouth twice.”

Ben covered his face again, shaking his head and not responding. Hux was used to sex workers and other soldiers who were somewhat jaded when it came to such things. Hux had sucked other people until his mouth was dry without getting them to come. Ben was… refreshing.

The thought of his mouth being dry reminded him of his own erection, which was incredibly hard and verging on painful. At this rate, it wouldn’t take him long to finish either, something that would normally be humiliating, but was suddenly not, with Ben.

He shifted his shoulders, then grunted in annoyance. “Let my arms go.”

Ben pulled his hands away from his face. “Why?”

Hux blinked. Ben seemed genuinely curious. He thought about gathering up Ben’s come, using it to fuck Ben open with his fingers, hoping he didn’t have to say this out loud.

Ben’s breath caught, and he shifted back slightly to get a better look at Hux. “You still want to?”

This time, Hux’s breath caught, and he tried to hold in laughter. Ben scowled, catching it anyway.

“What were you expecting me to do with this?” he asked, thrusting his hips forward as Ben released the hold on his arms.

Ben’s eyes went to it, and his spent dick twitched weakly. “I could help you with that.”

Unexpectedly, Hux could feel the sensation of a warm mouth, lips, tongue, large calloused hands on his thighs. He gasped, looking into Ben’s eyes, Ben’s expression blank. “Stop,” he managed weakly, and the sensation disappeared. He closed his eyes and willed himself calm before opening them and regarding Ben again.

He thought about telling Ben he liked the feel of his mouth on him, that touching him without touching him was exactly what he wanted when he was so filthy. That Ben had fulfilled a fantasy he didn’t even know he had. But it was pointless - Ben knew that already.

“Did your other partners enjoy your use of the Force in bed?”

Ben looked down and turned a deeper shade of red. Hux would have been charmed by the complete change from the dangerous man that had blown the door to his office in to this shy partner, but he didn’t want to think about what it was that had driven Ben through the door of his office in the first place. Ben’s eyebrows twitched as he presumably picked up on the thought anyway, and he raised his eyes to Hux defiantly.

“I didn’t use the Force on my other partners.”

Hux leaned forward, his face just above Ben’s, as Ben leaned backwards. “No?”

Ben exhaled. “I didn’t need to. They…” he closed his eyes, and Hux frowned, unseen. He lifted one hand to scoop what he could of Ben from his abdomen, and used the pause to massage one fingertip against Ben’s hole. Ben gasped, his eyes opened.

“Continue,” Hux said mildly, working his finger in easily, twisting another in place.

“I didn’t do it that often,” Ben said quickly. “I’m not… it’s not good for Jedi to let themselves go. Like that. It’s…” Ben gasped as Hux twisted his fingers. “It’s too much.”

Hux exhaled in laughter, which Ben didn’t seem to mind this time. “So you didn’t use the Force because you haven’t had sex that often?”

With this, he squeezed Ben’s come through his fingers and added a third. It was a mess. He lowered his face to Ben’s neck and inhaled the sour scent of his sweat, reveling in every part of Ben as he could feel Ben’s Force seeping into him again. This was overwhelming. Hux had had a lot of partners, many people on Tatooine and in the Academies, but never anyone like Ben. He couldn’t say it out loud, and knew Ben could hear it anyway.

“Yes,” Ben whispered, and Hux’s cock throbbed, though Hux hated sentiment like that. “I just never thought about using the Force like that. I’m…” Ben gasped as Hux began massaging inside, and Ben tensed under his grip, crying out. When Ben didn’t continue, and Hux was curious, he withdrew his fingers. Ben flexed down for a moment, following his hand, opening his eyes in confusion.

“You’re what?” Hux asked, splaying his fingers against Ben’s ass, the sticky mess of come drying tacky against his fingers. He would need to be quick.

“I’m Ben Solo. Most people just… they’re turned on by that, and it’s quick.”

Hux rested his forehead against Ben’s shoulder for a moment, not sure what to do with that information. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Well, I can tell they like me,” Ben answered. He was serious. Hux could hear the slight confusion in his voice.

“Stop talking,” Hux commanded as he shifted up and back again. He tried to grip Ben’s hips, turn him over, but when Ben shifted, the cot broke and they both crashed painfully to the floor. But Hux was in a state, and needed to fuck Ben Solo before he thought too hard about how stupid Ben was or what exactly was going on or just how it felt to have Ben Solo all over him and pressing inside of him and everywhere else in the most annoying and affectionate way possible. So with the pain throbbing through his knees and Ben lying stunned on the floor, Hux flipped him over, pulled his hips up, and buried his tongue in his ass.

Despite having mind-reading abilities, Ben had clearly not been expecting this. He spasmed around Hux’s tongue and moaned aloud, and Hux had to keep his hips in place when he felt Ben shift forward.

Hux’s saliva helped make the come in his ass less tacky, and if Hux were honest with himself, he liked the thought of licking Ben’s own come out of his ass. He could feel something twist in his mind, in his body, and he realized it was Ben reacting to the thought of it turning Hux on.

Well. That was quite enough of that. Hux was so hard it hurt, and he didn’t think he would last very long. The roughness might drag it out a bit, but if he didn’t fuck Ben Solo right now, he was going to come all over the floor, and there wasn’t much fun in that.

He sat up, braced a hand against Ben’s hip, and guided his dick in with the other. He could feel the friction, and that Ben was tight. He went slow, petting Ben’s back with his hand once he was sure he could keep going. Ben was gasping, and Hux found his breath coming harder. After a moment, he realized they were breathing in tandem.  It was annoying.

“Do you want me to keep going?” Hux asked quietly, not sure he could make himself push any further into Ben.

Ben flexed back on him. “Yes,” he gasped. “Please, Armitage. Please.”

Hux pushed in harder. “If you can read my mind, you know not to call me Armitage.”

Ben gasped, and Hux pulled out slightly, feeling the drag. It wasn't unpleasant yet, but it would be.

“That’s right. They call you Major Fuxx. You must have a reputation for this.”

Hux’s hands tensed around Ben’s hips, and he came, and he hated himself for it. He pulled out of Ben and pushed him away in disgust, rolling onto his side on the gritty floor next to the remains of the cot, the rail pushing up painfully into his hip.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Ben rolled over on his side, unhampered by the railing from the cot.

“I didn’t know that turned you on.”

Hux reddened. He had gotten the nickname after demanding it in the middle of a rather robust threesome with two of the other officers. They had since been stationed away from Tatooine, but they had told everyone at the base and in Anchorhead who would listen. Hux got called that in bars, even by the sex workers who came from off-planet.

He hated that Ben probably knew all that about him now. “Fuck you.”

“You did.”

Hux rolled onto his side to look at Ben. He wanted to again, he wanted a shower and to leave the planet and to do it all with Ben, with lube, in a real bed. He wanted both sides of Ben. He wanted the confident killer, the one who could charge single-handedly into a building full of gang members armed to the teeth and think nothing of it. He wanted to send Ben to planet after planet until the gangs were gone and the First Order could keep the peace. And he wanted Ben to come back to the ship, reeking of sweat and killing, and he wanted to fuck the naive Jedi prince until he was screaming Hux’s last name.

But of course Ben could sense Hux thinking about using him in this way. Maybe he had other ideas. Maybe he would be offended by Hux’s presumption. Maybe he would just leave. Hux didn’t let the worry show on his face.

Ben’s features softened. “Can you make that happen? Can you really make it so we just travel around and do everything we did today?”

Hux closed his eyes, taken aback by Ben’s acceptance of everything, and he strengthened his resolve. His hope. He thought of a few favors he could call in, thought of who to file reports and requests with to make his entreaty sound more urgent and genuine, how to make what happened today sound singular. He thought he could. Maybe they would promote him to Colonel. He could get a large transport for the kind of operation he wanted to try.

He opened his eyes. “I think so.”

Ben rolled over on his back, putting one arm behind his head to keep it off the floor. The other hand strayed down to Hux’s. Hux grabbed it, hating the dry, warm palm and how good it felt.

Hux watched as Ben smiled, his hair falling off his cheek and down over his ear when he did.

“Well, if you can’t, I think I can probably make some fairly convincing arguments, if you can get me in front of the right people.”

Hux closed his eyes and smiled.

“You’re wicked.”

“Maybe a little.”

Hux squeezed his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then they blew up five planets.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr! [@vadianna](http://vadianna.tumblr.com).

**Author's Note:**

> For the curious, some/most of the Tarkin material comes from the novel _Tarkin_ , and the details of the Vader reveal are from novel _Bloodline_. Though I'm not above tweaking things as it suits me.


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